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Ilse kept her expression as bland as Sovic’s. “That is true. I had hoped my cousin could show me his estates, but I understand he is otherwise occupied. Are you my escort this morning?”
The other rider muttered something Ilse could not decipher. Bela’s lips twitched into an almost smile. “Let us say that I often ride a circuit of the grounds in the morning—call it a private ritual—and I thought you might prefer a guide willing to speak and answer your questions.”
So. Possibly Karasek’s captain of the guard felt particularly protective of her duke. Ilse could test that hypothesis, which might answer other questions of her own.
She smiled. “You thought correctly, Captain. Let us ride.”
They mounted. Sovic led the way through a tunnel and into a paved courtyard, surrounded by a low wall topped with ironwork and lit by the rising sun. The bars curved in patterns that echoed those in the stone, black against the brilliant sunlight, and topped by a deadly row of spikes. Beyond the gates, a pair of guards flanked the opening, and another pair walked the rounds. All the clues pointed to a far more dangerous situation than she had first expected. Ilse slowed her horse and glanced back to the house. Its walls rose up in a straight gray expanse five stories high, crowned by spires. Lesser wings swept out to either side—foothills to the grand central mountain. She thought she could spot the windows of her own rooms.
“Very grand,” Bela said.
“Very,” Ilse agreed. “My cousin is a wealthy man, but everyone knows that.”
“So they do,” Bela said. “Shall we ride, my lady?” She indicated a wide path that circled around the house, then another narrower path leading into the fields. “We have gentle trails and rough ones, or there is the road leading to the nearest village. Whatever you like.”
“You said you made a private survey,” Ilse replied. “I would like to see that.”
“My ride is a long one.”
Her companion smiled. A warning or a challenge?
“If I tire, I will let you know,” Ilse said.
Bela’s answer was a soft laugh. Definitely a challenge.
They set off with Bela in the lead. A grassy expanse spilled out from the courtyard to a wilderness beyond. The path—no more than a narrow ribbon of bare dirt—led them through a break of trees, over a stream, and up a steep incline. Up they climbed, along a winding path that gradually brought them into the foothills on the northern edge of the valley.
Bela dismounted and walked her horse along the ridge. Ilse followed. They came to a crown of boulders. A few feet farther, the trail ended in a ravine cut by a rushing stream.
They tethered their horses to a nearby tree. Bela crouched by the edge of the ravine itself. Ilse stopped a few steps behind and followed the direction of Bela’s gaze as she surveyed the duke’s lands.
The early mists had burned away. The sun had lifted into the skies, a disk of gold casting shafts of light through the clouds. Far to the east, Ilse could see farmland and open fields where cattle grazed. Closer by were several villages, strung along the stream they had crossed. Directly below them stood Taboresk House, a solid gray anchor amid the greening fields.
“My favorite,” Bela said. “It was how I first came into this valley, as swift and direct as I could, not knowing that sometimes the longer path is quicker.”
Her voice was soft and pensive.
“When did you first come here?” Ilse asked.
“Fifteen years ago. Two years before the duke returned from Duszranjo. Of course he was not the duke then. Not even the heir.”
The air went still, or so it seemed to Ilse. From far off came the faint reverberation of an hour bell.
“But, of course, you knew of that,” Bela went on. “You had to, living in Duszranjo.”
I should. But your duke never schooled me on the necessary details.
But even this glimpse of the man’s past explained his reaction to her earlier questions.
“His grace never told us when you came into the family’s service,” she said.
“He would not,” Bela replied. “It was his father who bought me from the prison. I had tried to fight the pirates on my own after they killed my sister and brother. I— I was less able to distinguish between the enemy and someone merely ignorant, or greedy, and I killed the wrong person. Several wrong persons. The king wished to punish me. I cannot say I disagree, but the old duke believed in mercy. He paid the blood price and took me from the prison. He sent me with a horse, money, and a letter of introduction to the captain of his guards.”
She spoke fervently, as if that long-dead duke stood before them and she was reaffirming her vow of allegiance. Ilse could not think how to reply.
“You loved him?” she said at last.
Bela laughed. “Oh, no. He was a hard man, the duke, at least to his soldiers and his guards. But I respected him, and for what he—and his son—have done for me, I would do anything in return.”
