Free The Pearls by Deborah Chester Page A

fragile?” Lea asked.
    â€œAll the finest ladies are agreeably fragile.”
    â€œI will not break, Captain, and I can withstand the cold as well as anyone.”
    He smiled at her, displaying excellent white teeth beneath a thin, fashionable mustache. “Yes, of course. But why not rest while the servants prepare a fire for you? Getting all the wagons through this mud will take time. You would perhaps enjoy a meal, and the poet will oblige you, I’m sure, with his newest song.”
    Lea had heard the poet-singer rehearsing since morning, between complaints that the cold air was bad for his voice and requests to please ride in an enclosed litter with the ladies. Lea was not disposed to listen to any of it again.
    She gathered her reins, making Ysandre shift and toss his head impatiently. “No, thank you.”
    â€œSome other diversion? Your priest, perhaps?”
    â€œNo.” It was useless, Lea knew, to remind him that Poulso was not her priest. Captain Olivel Hervan, despite his excessive charm served on a platter of flattery, never listened to anything she said. “I’m going on, Captain,” she said now, firmly. “When the wagons are past this point, they can catch up. Please inform my ladies that they are free to ride after me, or remain with the wagons.”
    â€œLady Lea—”
    She held up her hand to silence him. “I suggest that in addition to a pry pole, your men try laying bundles of sticks across the bog, so that once my litter is free the other wagons don’t stick in the same spot.”
    â€œLady Lea—”
    â€œCome, Thirbe,” she said, kicking Ysandre forward.
    But the captain’s horse moved to block her path, and he leaned over to grab her reins. “Wait, please.”
    She jerked her horse to one side, spurring him out of Hervan’s reach. “Never try that again,” she said fiercely, and sent Ysandre cantering up the road.

Chapter 5
    S he might have won the skirmish, Lea thought some time later, but she wasn’t sure it constituted a victory. The initial exhilaration of being outside in the fresh, cold air, riding through this lovely valley had given way to increasing uneasiness as the afternoon wore on.
    She could not say exactly what troubled her about the place. The old imperial road wound along the natural contours of land instead of running arrow straight. It followed a stream that flowed shallow and quick between low, flat banks and outcroppings of water-worn limestone. To her right stretched fallow fields, dotted with self-sown saplings and choked with long coarse grass browned and knocked flat by a killing frost.
    Strange, Lea thought, that there were no birds here. No flocks of slim, gray-backed chikbeaks flying up in alarm from the undergrowth with that distinct buzzing whir of wings. No marshbirds with gaudy red markings flitting here and there among the weeds, foraging before winter closed in. Plenty of tall, gone-to-seed plumes of fluffy thistle grew along the road’s edge, yet where were the tiny yellow fincos she’d seen elsewhere hanging upside down and feeding so greedily they barely flew away at the horses’ approach?
    The ten cavalrymen riding with her initially had swelled in number to almost the full squadron of a hundred. Her ladies had caught up, looking rather flushed and wind-blown on the placid mares assigned to their use. The musicians were along as well, and one had begun plucking a lute although he’d yet to find a tune, in Lea’s opinion. A flash of white, crimson, black, and silver went galloping by, catching her attention. It was Captain Hervan, riding his large bay horse effortlessly, his short cloak and helmet plume streaming out behind him. Barsin rode in his wake, getting splattered for his devotion. Lea saw the pair slow down at the front of the column and take their usual positions there. Of the wagons there was no sign. According to Sergeant Kress, who came