Without realizing it, Briony had reached out and grabbed at Kendrick’s red-smeared arm. Her horse bumped flanks with her brother’s mount. “Pray all heaven, he is not hurt, is he?” she asked Gailon, unable to keep the terror from her voice. The cold shadow she had felt all day seemed to draw closer. “The king is well?”
Summerfield nodded. “I am told the man says your father continues unharmed, and that he brings a letter from him, among other things.”
“Oh, the gods are good,” Briony murmured.
Kendrick frowned. “But why has Ludis sent this envoy? That bandit who calls himself Protector of Hierosol can’t think we have found all the ransom for the king yet. A hundred thousand gold dolphins! It will take us at least the rest of the year to raise it—we have dragged every last copper out of the temples and merchant houses, and the peasants are already groaning under the new taxes.”
“Peasants always groan, my lord,” said Gailon. “They are as lazy as old donkeys—they must be whipped to work.”
“Perhaps the envoy from Hierosol saw all these nobles in their fine clothes, out hunting,” Barrick suggested sourly. None of them had noticed him riding closer. “Perhaps he has decided that if we can afford such expensive amusements, we must have found the money.”
The Duke of Summerfield looked at Barrick with incomprehension Kendrick rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored his younger brother’s gibe, saying, “It must be something important that brings him. Nobody sails all the way from Hierosol to carry a letter from a prisoner, even a royal prisoner.”
The duke shrugged. “The envoy asks for an audience tomorrow.” He looked around and spotted Shaso riding some distance back, but lowered his voice anyway. “And another thing. He is as black as a crow.”