"BETTER THAT SHEis gone."
Those were the last words Duke Kalas had said to Danube that day, in an abrupt and dismissive tone. And that was precisely the sentiment being echoed throughout Danube's court, the King knew.
All his friends and companions, including many who had been with him since his childhood, were thrilled that Jilseponie had left for Palmaris, that the Queen was gone from court, perhaps never to return. He heard the laughter and the snide remarks. He heard the excited recounting of his wife's ride out of Castle Ursal many times over, usually as it was whispered in the shadows of the main rooms or at the edges of the grand dinner table. He felt the renewed warmth of all his courtiers, their agreement with Jilseponie's decision to leave, their apparent relief that somehow, in all of this, King Danube had come to his senses and dismissed the peasant Queen back to her wilderness realm.
Every pat on the back might as well have been delivered by the sharp point of a poisoned dagger, as far as Danube was concerned. Every cheer, every chuckle, bit at him as viciously as might one of Duke Kalas' ferocious hunting dogs.
No matter how hard King Danube tried to tell himself that Jilseponie had done the proper thing in leaving - and that, obviously, it had been a terrible mistake for him to bring her here, to this place where she did not belong - no matter how hard King Danube tried to focus on the pain of all the rumors concerning his wife, of her infidelity in intent if not action or her sinister plotting against his best interests, there was one truth that would not be diminished, to the King's great distress.
Jilseponie was the only woman he had ever truly loved.
These last few weeks without her had been the loneliest King Danube Brock Ursal had ever known.
"Lady Pemblebury, my King," a page announced with a bow.
Danube winced, but motioned for the boy to admit her.
Constance, seeming frail and shaky, entered the room tentatively, without any of the former bravado she had once exhibited. That, too, made Danube wince, for he could not deny some responsibility in creating this broken shell of the formerly strong woman, a woman who had borne him two fine sons and who had been one of his closest friends and his lover for two decades.
"I came to speak of Merwick's training," Constance remarked quietly. "It is time for him to join the Allhearts."
King Danube looked at her skeptically. "There is plenty of time for that," he replied.
"He is past his sixteenth birthday," Constance said, a bit more forcefully. "He must be outfitted, and by the finest smith in the service of the crown. And then he must be trained, by Duke Kalas himself, to lead men. To lead warriors. It is a necessary step for one who is to be king."
Danube smiled and looked away. Despite her fragile state, it hadn't taken Constance long to fully insinuate herself into the affairs of Castle Ursal. Danube was quite certain that Constance had already picked out the smith and had likely already scheduled Merwick's fittings for his suit of armor.
Not for the first time, King Danube wondered if he had been wise to place his bastard sons, Constance's sons, into the line of royal succession. He could not ignore the truth that Jilseponie's unintentional displacement of Constance Pemblebury had been the primary source of all the distress in court these last years, and what made it all the more frustrating for him was that he could not rightly blame Constance for any of that.
He gave a great sigh and nodded his agreement. "Duke Kalas will relish the assignment," he said, managing a smile; and Constance smiled back at him, a thin, forced expression. She turned and started to leave but glanced back over her shoulder and remarked, "Your Queen has not sent word that she will soon return? The roads from Palmaris will fast close with the coming of snow. Will you be forced to spend the season alone?"
There was something more in her tone than concern for him, Danube easily recognized. Buried under the obvious statement of that which everyone already knew - that Jilseponie would not soon return - there was a flicker of something that again bit hard at Danube.
Hope.
Constance turned back and left him.
He had no doubt that she would try to use the Queen's absence to wriggle back into his arms and good graces, and he had no doubt that everyone at court would embrace that hope and do everything they could to strengthen Constance's position.
The mere thought of it made Danube drop his head into his hands, then run them back wearily over his thinning salt-and-pepper hair.
It was going to be a long winter.
She was wearing her old clothes again, peasant clothes: a simple brown tunic and white breeches, doeskin boots, and a green traveling cloak. Only the pouch on her left hip, full of magical gemstones, and Defender, her fine, magical sword, strapped to the left side of her mount's saddle, betrayed her as someone other than a common and quite average woman.
Indeed, as she had shed her royal raiments, so had she shed her title and her formal name. It was not Queen Jilseponie who had ridden back into Palmaris beside Roger Lockless and Dainsey, but rather, it was Pony. Just Pony. A friend and not the Queen. A friend and not the hero of the northland.
Just Pony.
And that name at that time sounded to her as sweet as the sweetest note ever played.
"We could continue to Caer Tinella," Roger offered as the trio walked their horses along the city's cobblestoned streets, "perhaps all the way to Dundalis and back, long before the first snows find the roads."
Pony didn't even hesitate before saying no simply and without much emotion. She wasn't ready to return to Dundalis; it seemed better to her to ease back into this life as Pony - this previous identity - gently, gradually. Going to Dundalis would mean going to the grove outside the town, to the grave of Elbryan.
"Not yet," she clarified, looking over to see that Roger wore a surprised expression. "Perhaps in the spring. That way, we can get the whole season there and not be trapped so far north if we find that the new Dundalis is not to our liking."
"Spring?" Dainsey asked. "Then ye're plannin' to be with us for a bit?"
Pony smiled, not bothering to answer. "You can ride ahead to Chasewind Manor, if you want," she told her companions, and she nodded her head in the direction of a street they were fast approaching, a wide lane that led to the front gates of St. Precious Abbey. "It is past time that I see Bishop Braumin - in his home instead of mine."
She had meant the line as a simple joke, but when she heard the words, they did anything but cheer her up. Referring to Castle Ursal as her home struck a chord in Pony, for in truth she had never looked upon the place as such. Castle Ursal was Danube's home, and Pony was Danube's wife, but never had she been able to honestly extend that connection to thus make Castle Ursal her own home.
She heard Roger begin to reply that he and Dainsey would accompany her to St. Precious, but Dainsey interrupted him, clearing her throat rather loudly. Although Pony did not look back at them, she could easily imagine Dainsey nodding her head at Roger, silently telling him that she, Pony, needed some time alone.
"We will go to Chasewind, then," Roger said. "I'll alert the guards and ready your rooms."
Pony wanted to tell him to dismiss the guards altogether, but that, of course, she could not do.
Soon after, she turned her mount down the lane, St. Precious towering before her, though it was still several blocks away. She considered again Castle Ursal; Dundalis; and this town, Palmaris, and wondered where among all three there was a place that she could truly call her home.
"Thrice married, and alone again," she said with an amused chuckle.
She gave a profound sigh, not sure at all where she now fit into the world. Was she Pony, the woman who had grown up a peasant in Dundalis, and then spent her adolescence in Palmaris? Was she Jill - Cat-the-Stray -that orphaned and confused young woman who had married Connor Bildeborough, the nephew of the Baron of Palmaris, only to have the marriage annulled soon after, when her inner demons of a childhood shattered by raiding goblins had prevented her from consummating the union? Was she the same Pony who had then found her true love, Elbryan, and had spent the years riding with him, battling the demon and its minions, and then battling Father Abbot Markwart, whose tainted soul had so warped the Abellican Church?
Or was she Queen Jilseponie, the wife of King Danube? Truly his wife and truly the queen? Or was she, as so many in Ursal insisted, a peasant impostor, thrust into a world that she could not understand and could not tolerate?
"A bit of all," she whispered, and she felt a twinge of pain, not for herself but for Danube. He had said some pretty horrible things to her, had, despite his own best efforts, heard clearly the many rumors disparaging her name; but, in truth, Danube had never treated her, badly, and she knew - and this is what pained her the most - Danube had never stopped loving her.
So was this a desertion or a needed respite? Would she return to Ursal to fulfill her duties as wife and as queen or would she forever hide here, chosing a life simpler by far in a land cleaner and easier to understand?
The only thing that Pony knew for certain was that she didn't know anything for certain.
The gates of St. Precious were open, so she walked her horse into the courtyard before the main building. Bishop Braumin came bounding out before she could even dismount, as news of her arrival spread like wildfire through the abbey.
Braumin, carrying at least twenty pounds more than when Pony had last seen him, rushed up to her. After she dismounted he wrapped her in such a great hug that the pair nearly fell over onto the ground.
"I would have expected trumpets blaring at the docks," Braumin said, "to announce the arrival of the Queen!" The Bishop pushed her back to arm's length, studying her admiringly and shaking his head.
Pony laughed at his antics and his remark. "I took no boat," she explained, "but rode all the way from Ursal."
"Then trumpets at the south gate!"
"And with no entourage," Pony went on, "just me and Roger and Dainsey. A quiet ride through a quiet land."
Braumin's expression turned to one of curiosity. "A much longer journey by road," he said, "and one that will take away from our time together." He wasn't frowning as he said this, but he continued to look at Pony curiously, as if suspecting that her trip here was something more than a visit.
"We will have all the time that we desire," Pony replied. "I promise."
"Still, for the Queen to be riding without armed escort . . ."
"Do not think of me as the Queen," she replied. "And pray, have none of your brethren announce my arrival beyond your abbey walls. I am not Queen Jilseponie here but just Pony, your friend of old."
Braumin's look shifted to a knowing expression, and he nodded and hugged her again.
Pony spent, the rest of the day with Braumin and with Viscenti, who, quite the opposite of Braumin, seemed to have lost more than twenty pounds, and that from a frame that could ill afford it. Viscenti looked emaciated, worn away, but his smile was genuine and the inquisitive sparkle remained bright in his eyes.
They talked of old times and caught each other up on more recent events, Pony diplomatically edging around her present problems at Danube's court, and with the other two politely not pressing her.
As the sun was setting, Pony rode out from St. Precious, walking her horse along a meandering course that generally led her to the western section of the city. To her relief - though when she thought about it, she realized that her fears were unfounded - she was not recognized by any of the folk along the streets.
Perhaps she would find a simpler existence here.
With that thought in mind, she changed her course and, instead of going to Chasewind Manor, rode to an inn and took a room, then sent a message to Roger and Dainsey.
Thus she lived, as the weeks of summer passed, not as the queen or a noblewoman at all, not as a sovereign sister, but merely as Pony, just as she had lived before the tide of momentous events had swept her anonymity and simple existence from her. She spent her days with Roger and Dainsey, and sometimes with Braumin and her friends at St. Precious. Together, they all planned a trip to the north, to Caer Tinella and Dundalis, to begin as soon as winter passed.
It was a quiet and calm and peaceful existence.
Pony knew that it would all change again, though, one autumn morning, late in the season, when the blare of trumpets and the cries of heralds awakened her, and nearly everyone else in the city, to the news that King Danube Brock Ursal had sailed into Palmaris.
She thought of going to the docks, but decided against it - she didn't know who the King might have brought with him, after all. She headed instead for Chasewind Manor, knowing that Danube would expect to find her there and recognizing that there, at least, she could limit in attendance the companions the King might have brought with him from Ursal.
Her relief was complete a short while later when Danube arrived at Chasewind Manor without Duke Kalas or Constance Pemblebury, or any of the other nobles that Pony had no desire to see.
He rushed into the room before he could even be announced, running past Roger and Dainsey without acknowledging them, and falling to one knee before the seated - and trying to stand up! - Pony, taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips in a gentle kiss.
He looked up at her with his gray eyes full of regret and weariness. "I had to come," he explained. "I cannot tolerate another day without you. Nothing matters beyond that - I cannot even attend to the affairs of state, because without you there beside me, they seem unimportant."
Pony hardly knew how to respond. She did stand up, and used her trapped hand to guide Danube up before her - and he wasted not a moment in wrapping her in a great hug. In that embrace, Pony was able to look over the King's shoulder, to see the frowns worn by both Roger and Dainsey.
Those expressions reminded her, and she pushed Danube back to arm's length.
"Do I need to remind you of all that happened?" she asked.
"Please do not. It would pain me too greatly," Danube responded, and his voice was thick with regret. "Do not recount how I have failed you, as a husband or as a man."
Pony's expression softened considerably, and she clutched her husband's hand tightly, even brought it up and kissed it. "You did no such thing," she assured him. "You could not have anticipated the reactions of your friends in Ursal; and that alone, and nothing that you did, forced me back to the north."
"For a vacation only," Danube remarked, and Pony wore a doubting smile.
"Return with me!" the King insisted, "straight away, before the winter's cold closes the river to transport. I care little for my supposed friends and their attitudes - I know only that I'll not suffer another day without you by my side."
Pony glanced over at Roger and Dainsey again, and it was obvious that they both disapproved.
But in truth, she was unsure at that moment. She certainly didn't want to return to Ursal but neither did she desire the end of her third marriage. She had taken her vows in good faith, and if she couldn't rightly blame him - and she didn't believe that she could - then how could she forsake the duties she'd sworn to fulfill? Did she not owe Danube at least the attempt to make things better?
"Constance is back in Castle Ursal," King Danube admitted then, and Pony's frown was immediate.
"And I wish her to stay," he went on. "That is her place, as it is yours."
Roger started to say something, something far from complimentary, obviously, but Pony stopped him with an upraised hand.
"She has learned her place and will not interfere with our relationship," Danube explained.
Pony almost blurted out about the poisoning, but she bit it back. There was no reason for him to know. It would bring him nothing but pain, and she knew that she had brought Danube enough of that already.
"I cannot make such a decision so quickly," she said.
"Time grows short," said the King. "Winter nears."
Pony's expression soured.
"You fear that Constance - " Danube began.
"Not at all," Pony answered without hesitation and with all sincerity, for she feared nothing from Constance Pemblebury now that she understood the depth of the woman's hatred for her. She could watch over Constance easily enough.
Her interruption made Danube step back and consider her even more carefully. "You do not feel the need to question whether or not I have resumed my relationship with Constance?" he asked.
Pony laughed, recognizing that she had jumped to a different, far more nefarious, conclusion at the beginning of his remark.
"The need to ask did not occur to me," she said. "For if you had - have -resumed such a relationship, you would tell me, I am sure."
The show of trust brought tears to Danube's eyes, and he brought Pony's hands up to his mouth and kissed them again and again.
He left her soon after, at her insistence that he give her the night to consider his words.
"You plan to return," Roger remarked as soon as the King was gone, his tone showing his disapproval more clearly than his frown.
"I consider it," she replied.
"How can you?" Roger asked.
"Perhaps I went to Ursal the first time without truly understanding that which I would face," she said.
"And that ye'll still face," Dainsey said sourly.
Pony nodded. "Perhaps," she admitted. "But never did I face anything in Ursal that I could not tolerate, as long as King Danube stayed by my side throughout it. I do have responsibilities to him, and I do not wish to hurt him."
Dainsey started to say something more, but Roger grabbed her and quieted her. "Just promise me that, should you go, you will remember well the road home, and take that road if you need it."
Pony walked over and placed her hands on her friend's shoulders. "Or I will yell so loudly that Roger will hear and come to my rescue," she said.
Predictably, King Danube was back at Chasewind Manor at the break of dawn, having ridden hard from River Palace where he had spent the night.
He was waiting for Pony at the breakfast table, his expression caught somewhere between smiling eagerly and terror stricken.
"If I return, it will not be as it was," Pony explained as soon as she sat down, before even piling the assorted fruits set out for her on her plate.
Danube merely continued to stare at her.
"I will be more your wife and less your queen," she explained. "I will move about the castle as I desire, and it is likely that I will spend less time within than without. I will embrace my role as a sovereign sister and work with the poor and the sick, using gemstone magic to heal, and without the trumpet blare and military escort."
"There remains a matter of security," Danube started to say, but Pony's incredulous look put that thought away before it could gain any real foothold.
"Then you will return?" the King asked.
Pony looked away, looked out the window at the gardens of the manor house. After a while, she looked back and shrugged. "If I return," she said again.
The King nodded. "Come back with me, I beg," he said quietly, "on whatever terms you decide."
Jilseponie put her hand on his. She gave no direct answer, but her expression made her intent quite clear.
Danube's smile was wider than it had been in many months.
Roger and Dainsey, along with Braumin, Viscenti, and several other brothers of St. Precious, watched River Palace drift away from the Palmaris docks a few days later, carrying their friend back to that other world of Castle Ursal.
They had all argued with Pony not to go, but only to a point. Roger believed that she was returning ready this time, and though he feared for her, he trusted her when she assured him that if things got nearly as terrible this time, she would be fast out of there.
Still, Roger could not help biting his lip and second-guessing himself for letting her go, for not insisting that he go with her, as he watched the ship glide away from the docks and turn south.