We had two wagons and a couple of riding horses, and I’d brow-beaten my family into wearing the clothes of common farmers. The wagons were actually more for show than convenience. The food and blankets were necessary, but the several pieces of nondescript furniture piled on top of them were there to make it appear that we were nothing more than an extended farm family on the move.
It took us a week and a half to reach Lake Erat, and the family hid out in the forest overnight while I went owl to meticulously investigate the area. I found no sign of any Angaraks, and so we moved cautiously along a barely visible wood-cutter’s track to the edge of my rose-thicket.
I made another quick survey at that point. There were three wood-cutters about a mile away, and just to be on the safe side, I murmured ‘sleep’ to them from the limb upon which I was perched. Then I went back to my family, asked the roses to make way for us, and we all went on to the manor house.
‘What a magnificent home!’ Geran’s wife, Eldara, exclaimed.
‘I’m glad you like it, dear,’ I told her. ‘Get used to it, because we’ll probably be here for several years.’
‘Long enough to get the place cleaned up, anyway,’ Geran said with a tone of resignation.
‘I don’t understand,’ Eldara said with a puzzled look.
‘You will, dear,’ Geran told her. ‘Believe me, you will. Where did we leave the mops and brooms, Aunt Pol?’
‘In that storage room just off the kitchen, Geran.’
‘Well,’ Geran said to his family, ‘I guess we’d better go inside and get started.’
Chapter 28
My house on the shores of Lake Erat was our refuge of last resort during those early years – my version of ‘a cave in the mountains’. I used it for that purpose several times until I grew more skilled at escape and evasion. Just the knowledge that it was there and that it was highly unlikely that any Murgo could find it gave me a profound sense of security.
That first time was slightly different from later ones, since there was a very good reason for us to make our stay an extended one. Geran had been born a prince, and his earliest memories and all his deeply ingrained instincts were based on that fact. Anonymity was just not a part of his nature. He’d been born to a royal family, and, since it was a good royal family, he’d been raised to take his responsibilities more seriously than his privileges. He tended to take charge of things and went out of his way to help his neighbors. That was probably what was behind his near-brush with elective office. It was highly admirable, but was also quite probably the worst thing he could have done. Cold logic told me that Geran was simply too good for the outside world. And so, though it withers my soul to admit it, our years among the roses had only one purpose – to give Geran and his wife time to grow old and die.
Does that seem cold-blooded? I loved Geran – as much as I would have had he been my own son. My first responsibility, however, was to the blood-line, not to individuals, and the safety of the line hinged on keeping those inheritors who were incapable of maintaining their anonymity completely isolated from public view. It happened several times during the centuries that followed, and it always pained me when I was obliged to take one of those earnest young men to my manor house and to keep him there until the years carried him off. I sometimes wonder if my centuries as Duchess of Erat hadn’t just been to prepare me for the endless funeral I was forced to endure as a part of the task that’d been laid upon me. I’d lost Killane and Asrana and Malon and Ontrose, and there in that house by the lake I was patiently waiting to lose Geran and Eldara so that I could move on.
Prince Geran of Riva died in his sleep in 4066, not long after his seventieth birthday. His death wasn’t really unexpected, since he’d been in decline for a number of years. We grieved his loss, and I’m happy to say that no member of our little family brightly announced that ‘it’s better this way’. That particular empty-headed platitude offends me to the verge of physical violence. I’m a physician, after all, death is my enemy, not my friend.
We buried Geran on the same hilltop where Killane rested, and we returned then to the now somehow empty house.
Two years later, Eldara joined her husband, and I began to make some subtle suggestions to the rest of the family that we might want to start thinking about going back out into the world.
I gave them a year to absorb the idea and then, one summer evening after supper when we were all sitting on the terrace, I brought it out into the open. ‘Where do you think we should go?’ I asked them.
‘Back home, of course,’ Alnana replied quickly.
‘I don’t think that’d be a good idea, dear,’ I disagreed. ‘Our enemies are probably waiting for us there.’
‘But my sisters live in Muros,’ she protested.
‘All the more reason not to go there,’ I told her. ‘Murgo assassins tend to kill everyone in sight once they start murdering people. If we go back to Muros, we could very well be putting your sisters – and their families as well – in mortal danger.’
‘You mean that I’m never going to see them again?’ she cried.
‘At least you’ll know that they’re alive, Alnana,’ I told her.
‘If we want to get as far away from Muros as possible, we should go to Camaar – or Darine,’ Davon suggested.
‘Not Camaar,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘There are too many people of foreign birth there. We’re trying to avoid Murgos, not to cuddle up to them.’
‘Darine, then?’ Alten said.
I pursed my lips. ‘That might be the best. Darine’s crawling with Alorns, and Alorns have certain hereditary prejudices.’
‘Oh?’
‘They instinctively hate Murgos. Racial prejudice is stupid and very unattractive, but it can be useful sometimes. I’m sure that there are nice Murgos – somewhere in the world – but the ones we’ll encounter here in the west aren’t likely to be among them. Any time you see a Murgo west of the Escarpment or north of Sthiss Tor, you can be fairly certain that he’s here to kill you.’
‘What about all the other Angaraks?’ Alten asked.
‘The Malloreans live on the other side of the Sea of the East, and they take their orders from Urvon, not Ctuchik. Thulls are too stupid to pose much of a threat, and the Nadraks are an enigma. Nobody can ever be really sure whose side a Nadrak is on. Ctuchik relies almost exclusively on the Murgos – the Dagashi in particular. They’re the ones we have to watch out for. Let’s give some serious thought to Darine. With so many Alorns living there, any Murgo in Darine’s going to be more interested in staying alive than he’ll be in killing us.’