Rory chatted companionably with the young staff officers, but I stuck next to the general. I did not like the look of James Drake, wearing yet another of Vai’s purloined dash jackets to spite me. What I least liked the look of was his squadron of thirty young fire mages. How many catch-fires he controlled I was not sure, for one of the carriages was locked, with caged persons inside, while a file of shackled catch-fires marched under guard of soldiers wearing Lady Angeline’s badge.
We traveled hard all day on the main road, passing sections of the slow-moving baggage train. Columns of infantry marched away to either side, across fields, the army like locusts on the move. Messengers galloped up on spent horses with reports from the vanguard. In the town of Castra, where Lord Gwyn had died, we were met by cheering locals lining the road.
North of town we stopped to water and feed the horses. Soldiers ate stale bread and took naps. I walked upstream to wash my dusty face and hands.
Rory lay down on the grass and slid into a doze. I smiled to see his peaceful face lit by the sun. As for me, I was terribly hungry. The roofs of a farmstead rose nearby. I would have gone to beg food from them, but I had no money to pay for it and probably they had already had their granary emptied by a quartermaster.
“I wonder,” I said to dozing Rory, “how a general who comes to liberate makes sure he isn’t just seen as a thief.”
He snorted awake, rising up on an elbow. I turned. Lady Angeline approached along the bank. Downstream, horses muddied the waters.
I made a pretty courtesy, for although as wife to the heir of Four Moons House I now ranked as her equal, I did not want anyone here to know of Vai’s new status. “Your Highness.”
Her gaze grazed along the length of Rory’s body, and to my amusement she flushed when he winked at her. Unlike Drake, he did look good in Vai’s clothes, even when they were rumpled from travel. She turned to me. “What am I to call you?”
“Maestra Barahal, as you wish, Your Highness. May I ask if you have been married long?”
“Let me make myself understood to you, Maestra. Do not make an enemy of me. I am the only child of the prince of Armorica, he who stands as overlord above the Veneti dukes.”
“Ah.” I surveyed her proud posture and confident stance. Her riding clothes suited her. Clearly she was a woman of taste, in most regards. “Yet if I am correct, by Gallic law you cannot rule in your own right because you are a woman. You must marry a man who will become son to your father and then prince in his place.”
“You comprehend my situation astutely, Maestra. Unlike every other prince’s son, James has no interest in ruling Armorica and will leave to me the inheritance I have earned.”