Karigan cocked her head, waiting.
“I don’t understand why he wrote this letter if he planned to see me upon its delivery.”
“Maybe he knew he might not survive this last mission,” Karigan suggested.
Estora’s thin brows were bunched together, her eyes troubled. “Yes, that could be, but still, F’ryan wasn’t one for writing letters. If ever one was intercepted by the wrong person, it would mean the end of all we had together. There are also certain details in the letter that aren’t quite right.”
Estora stood up and paced the floor, her long black skirts flickering in the silver light. “I don’t have dark amber hair,” she said. “F’ryan knew that well. He spoke no end of my gold hair, of passing his hands through it.” She stopped abruptly and a blush spread just above the veil. “A summer wedding! He mentioned a summer wedding. We had planned no such thing, impossible as it was. We talked in whimsy, of course. He also mentioned a brother. F’ryan has no brother. There are other details of similar type. It is strange.”
Karigan scratched her head. “Perhaps he was distressed when he wrote it.”
“I do not think so. Very little distressed him.” Estora paused by the window with a sad sigh.
Karigan straightened in inspiration. What was it Captain Mapstone had said about F’ryan bearing messages in code? “Are . . . are you sure the letter was meant for you?”
Estora looked at Karigan as if she had suddenly sprouted horns. “Of course it was. Why, for all the mistakes, he does mention things that were known only between the two of us.”
“There could be more in that letter.” Did F’ryan hide the real message in the form of a love letter and use the other message as a decoy? “May I have the letter?”
Estora clutched it to her breast. “Whatever for?”
“I would like to show it to Captain Mapstone. I think there’s more to it.”
“I told you my family would cast me out if ever my relationship with F’ryan was discovered.”
“You said yourself that no Green Rider ever revealed the two of you, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I promise this won’t go beyond Captain Mapstone. I think it’s important.”
Estora still held the letter to her. As she hesitated, F’ryan Coblebay appeared dimly beside his beloved. Estora did not detect him, and Karigan thought that of anyone, she should be the one to see him. F’ryan looked at Karigan with his somber expression, the arrows stiff in his back. He turned to Estora and whispered in her ear.
Estora shuddered as if suddenly remembering where she was. “If you can return this to me when you are done with it,” she said, “I would like it back. It is all I have left of him.” As she handed the letter to Karigan, F’ryan’s hand merged with hers as if to help her. “Odd,” Estora said, “but I think F’ryan would have wanted me to do this.”
The ghost cast Karigan another penetrating look, then faded out. “Thank you,” she said a bit breathlessly. “As I told you, this will not go beyond Captain Mapstone.”
Karigan didn’t wait for Estora to leave. Rather, she flung the door open and strode down the corridor, out of the building, and across the courtyard where the officers’ quarters stood. Unlike the long wooden Rider barracks, the officers quarters was a squat stone structure made to house only a handful of people. The stone walls protected those within from fire arrows and catapulted coals. The windows were mere slits through which defenders on the inside could shoot arrows. Even so, Karigan was glad she was housed at the barracks with the large window that overlooked the pasture.
The narrow windows were black. The captain was the only officer in residence, or so Mel had intimated. Karigan knocked hard on the thick green door. When no one answered, she knocked again. This time, light flickered to life in the windows, and a few moments later, the door groaned open on ancient hinges.
“What is it?” Captain Mapstone squinted at her, a lamp in one hand, her unsheathed sword in the other. She stood barefoot, a flannel sleeping gown fluttering in a breeze. Her hair, the color of new copper in the silver moon, flowed unbound and loose down her back. When Karigan did not answer immediately, she snapped, “Well, don’t just stand there, girl. I was sound asleep. What do you want?”
“I, uh . . . have this letter.” It was rather disconcerting to see the captain bleary-eyed and dressed in anything other than her smart green uniform. And the brown scar didn’t stop at the collar line, but continued in a ragged line down beneath the low neckline of the nightgown. Karigan licked her lips. “It belongs to Lady Estora. It was from F’ryan Coblebay. I found it in the pocket of his greatcoat after he died.”
“Repeat that.” When Karigan did, the captain’s eyes seemed to pop open one at a time. “You mean you knew about this letter all along and you never mentioned it?”
“It was a love letter. I never thought anything of it.”
Captain Mapstone was now fully awake. “You had better come in and explain this to me.”
Karigan followed her down a short corridor to her room. It was nearly as sparsely furnished as the barracks. A small bed, blankets rumpled and the pillow still depressed from the captain’s head, stood against one wall. The captain sheathed her saber and they sat in chairs beside a blackened fireplace.
“Now tell me.”
Karigan handed her the crumpled paper and watched as the captain read it. She explained how she had originally found it and vowed to deliver it to Lady Estora when she reached Sacor City. “I just left Lady Estora in my chamber. She told me there were peculiarities about the letter.” Karigan repeated their conversation. “I remembered that you said F’ryan Coblebay sometimes put his messages in code.”