Mercedes Lackey - Kerowyn's Ride

And where was Kero? Why didn’t she come to him?

She didn’t appear at his door any time that evening; he finished packing and tried to read a book, but couldn’t concentrate on the words. Finally he took a long hot bath, and drank a good half-bottle of wine to relax. He thought about his father; he and Kero had that in common as well, after the first shock, he was having a hard time feeling the way, perhaps, he should. He hardly knew the King—he’d spent more time away from Court than in it, mostly because of Thanel. Faram had been more of a father than Jad. The King had been the King, and word of his death was enough to shock any dutiful subject into tears. If it had been Faram, now—

He finished the bottle, tried once more to read, then gave up and climbed into bed. He more than halfway expected Kero to drift in through his door after he blew out the candle.

She has to come, he thought. She has to. She loves me, I know she does. And our lovemaking has always been good—once I get her in bed, I can make her see sense, I know I can.

But no; though he waited until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, despite tension that had his stomach in knots and his shoulders as tight as braided steel, she didn’t come.

By morning, he’d finally begun to believe that she wouldn’t. That he’d said the unforgivable.

He hadn’t expected her, but as he was saddling up his old palfrey, Tarma came down the stairs to the stable to see him off.

He’d never had more than cursory contact with Lady Kethry, and he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t appear at her partner’s side, but he was unexpectedly touched to see Tarma again.

“Couldn’t let you go without a parting gift, lad,” she said. “You’ll need it, too. Take Roan.”

“Take Roan ?” He could hardly believe it. The gelding he’d been using was a fine saddle-bred of her Clan’s breeding; he was astonished and touched, and very nearly disgraced himself by breaking into tears again.

“Dear gods, we’ve got Ironheart and Hellsbane, plus a couple of mules. He’ll be eating his head off in the stable if you don’t take him.” She led the gelding out of his stall and tethered him beside the palfrey. “Look at him, he’d be perfectly happy to do just that. I’d say it’s your duty to save the overstuffed beggar from his own stomach.”

“In that case,” he said, “I guess I have no choice.”

“Never try to cross a Shin’a’in, boy,” she told him gravely. “We always get our way.”

“So I’ve learned.” He dared to reach for her bony shoulders and hug her; she returned it, and they both came perilously close to damp eyes.

“Now get out of here before I have to feed you again,” she said, pushing him away, gently. “Star-Eyed bless, but the amount of provisions we’ve had to put in to keep you fed! You and that gelding make a matched set!”

It was a feeble joke, but it saved him, and he was able to take his leave of her dry-eyed, saddle up Roan, and ride off down the path to the road.

Then, as he stared back at the Tower, his eyes burned and stung after all.

She didn’t come.

She hadn’t even come to say good-bye.

He turned his back on the place resolutely. She’d made her choice; he had to get on with his life. Only his eyes kept burning, and not all the blinking in the world would clear them. He was rubbing them with the back of his hand, when like the ending to a ballad, he heard hoof-beats behind him—hoofbeats he recognized; the staccato rapping of Kero’s little mare’s feet on the hard-packed snow. He’d know that limping gait anywhere, any time; Verenna had favored her right foreleg ever since an accident in his second year here, and he knew her pace the way he knew the beat of his own heart.

He turned his gelding to greet her, his heart filled to bursting. She came to her senses! She’s coming with me! I won her over —

Then as she came into view, he felt a shock, and stared, his eyes going so wide he thought they were going to fall out of his head.

It was Kero, all right. With her face made up like one of the Court flowers, her hair in an elaborate arrangement that must have taken hours to do. In a dress. A fancy, velvet dress, a parody of hunting-gear. It was years, decades out of date, and she must have gotten it out of her grandmother’s closet.

She looked like a fool. It wasn’t just the dress, it wasn’t even mostly the dress, old and outdated as it was. It was that she was simpering at him, her eyes all wide and dewy, her lips parted artfully, her expression a careful mask of eager, honeyed anticipation.

“Oh, Daren ,” she gushed, as she rode within hearing distance. “How could you ever have thought I’d stay behind? After all you’ve offered me, after all we’ve meant to each other, how could you have ever doubted me?”

She rode up beside him and laid a hand on his elbow, a delicate, and patently artificial gesture. “I thought over what you’d said, and I realized how wise you are, Daren. The world isn’t going to change, so I might as well adapt to it! After all, it isn’t every day a prince of the blood offers to make me his consort !”

She giggled—not her usual hearty laugh, or even her warm, friendly, sensuous chuckle, but a stupid little giggle. Her mare sidled a little, and she let it, instead of controlling it.

That’s when it dawned in him. She was acting exactly the way those little ninnies at Court had been acting—vacuous, artfully helpless, empty-headed, greedy—Sickening. He pulled away from her, an automatic, unthinking reaction.

Abruptly, her manner changed. The artificial little fool vanished as completely as if she had never existed. Kero looked at him soberly, the absurd riding habit, painted cheeks and ridiculous hair all striking him as entirely unfunny. Verenna tried to sidle again, and this time Kero controlled her immediately.

“I just gave you everything you said you wanted me to be, yesterday. That’s exactly the way you asked me to behave.”

“In public!” he protested. “Not when we’re together! “

“Oh, no?” She tilted her head to one side. “Really? And how private is a prince of the blood? When can you be absolutely sure that our little secrets won’t be uncovered? When can you guarantee that we won’t be interrupted or watched from a distance?” He was taken rather aback—and vivid recollections came pouring back, of private assignations that had become public gossip within a week, of secrets that had been out as soon as uttered, of all the times he’d sought privacy only to find watchers everywhere. Roan stamped impatiently, reflecting his rider’s unease.

“Even if you can get away from your courtiers,” she persisted, her brows creased as she leaned forward earnestly in her saddle, “even if you can escape the gossips, how do you keep things secret from the servants? They’re everywhere, and they learn everything—and what they learn, sooner or later, the entire Court knows.”

She sat back in her saddle, and watched his face, her eyes following his. “Besides, what you live, you start to become. The longer I act like a pretty fool, the more likely I am to turn into one. Is that really what you want from me?”

“No!” he exclaimed, startling Roan into a snort. “No, what I love about you is how strong you are, how clever you are, how much you’re like a friend—the way I can talk to you like another man—”

He stopped himself, appalled, but it was too late. She was nodding.

“But this is what you asked me to become,” she replied, taking in dress, hair, and all with a single gesture. “Daren, dearheart, you don’t really want me as a lover, you want me as a friend, a companion. But I can’t be a companion in your world—I can only be something like this.”