Page 4 of Heart of Winter
“What do you…” Oliver began, and then he saw it, rearing up through the mist.
The palace.
Drake Hall, back home, was low, built of yellow stone, with plentiful mullioned windows that gleamed in the ready sunlight. It was a lord’s home, rather than a king’s, a suitable manor house with two dining rooms, plenty of bedchambers, and attic space for the servants. He’d liked to spend summer afternoons on the flat rooftops, leaning against the parapets, the breeze in his face, looking out across the rolling pastureland. It was grand, although he’d seen far grander in his books, his very many books.
This, though…the Palace of Aeres…
Despite a backdrop of snow-capped peaks, it stood on its own majesty: a colony of up-thrust round towers leaking steam against the sky, their windows small and leaded and shuttered. Gray building stone against the natural gray stone of the hills, it was hard to see where man-made edifice gave way to the rock outcroppings that must surely house the cellars, and kitchens, and hot springs.
A high, stone wall encircled all of it, its drawbridge lifted, its moat frothing in the breeze where it wasn’t a flat plane of ice. The portcullis was down, formidable, dark iron.
This was a castle. A place from which to repel a siege.
Oliver swallowed with difficulty.
“Aye, it’s rather grand, isn’t it?” Bjorn said. He clucked and slapped the reins, and the sleigh surged forward.
A yell startled Oliver – and Tessa, too, if the way she gripped his arm was anything to go by. He glanced over to see a rider coming up on their right: a fur-wrapped man astride a horse that high-stepped through the snow. His hand lifted, and Oliver nearly waved back, stupidly, before Bjorn shouted laughter and called, “Don’t lame your horse, you idiot!”
“He can’t,” a voice called from the left, and Oliver turned to find another rider, astride a stout bay, one hand held loosely on the reins, the other lifted in greeting. A steady seat; a glimpse of blond hair, and a beard, and bright blue eyes. “He’d have to go faster than a trot for that.”
Bjorn laughed again, and the two riders surged forward, cantering ahead, toward the gate; they passed the train of sleighs and drew together in front of the first, leading the way. The portcullis went up before them, and the drawbridge came down, soon enough that their caravan didn’t have to slow.
“The crown princes,” Bjorn explained. “Leif and Rune.”
The names reminded Oliver of his research. “The king’s nephews?”
“Aye, from his sister. His heirs.”
His heirs for now, Oliver thought. If the marriage happened, and Tessa proved fertile…
He recoiled mentally at the idea, thrusting his poor cousin into the role of unwilling mother like that.
The caravan jingled to a halt in the middle of a bailey of tall, hard stone walls, flickering braziers, snow, and small, wood-tiled outbuildings.
Bjorn climbed out, graceful for all his bulk, and reached in to lift Tessa out with both hands at her waist, handling her as if she weighed nothing – which, to him, she must.
“Oh!” Tessa’s hands fluttered a moment, but then she was on the ground, and safe, and Oliver was hurrying out of the sleigh to double check.
Bjorn swept his arm out in a grand gesture toward the crenelated towers and wall-walks encircling them. “Welcome to the Palace of Aeres. Pretty remarkable, eh?”
Oliver said, “That’s one word for it.” He spotted at least six guard towers, snow clinging to the arrow slits, and didn’t doubt there were unseen murder holes up there, too. Guards in thick furs and gleaming steel helmets walked there, pikes on their shoulders. For a place that lay beneath a blanket of quieting snow, it seemed no measure of defense had been spared.
The arched stone mouth of a stable offered lamplight, and cozy hay smells; a contingent of grooms came out for the reindeer, and for the princes’ horses. The heirs had dismounted, handed off their mounts, and joined them.
Both princes wore leather under heavy, fur-mantled cloaks; fur wrapped their boots, and trimmed their hoods; both wore blades at their hips, and the dark-haired, younger one carried a bow and quiver on his back, but neither exuded Bjorn’s ursine wildness.
“Prince Leif,” Bjorn introduced. “And Prince Rune. These are our Southern guests.”
Leif was the older by a few years, Oliver knew; tall, and strong-looking, with a blade for a nose – but a quiet, friendly softness to his smile. He wore his beard short, and his blond hair in a sequence of small, elaborate braids that he’d tucked behind his ears, the rest hanging loose down his back. Blue eyes.Pretty, Oliver thought.
His brother, Rune, wore his brown-black hair in a hasty knot, windswept from riding, one unraveling braid hanging down in front of his ear, its end adorned with silver beads. His beard was short, just a dusting of stubble, really, and his smile was boyish, betraying just how young he was beneath all that fur and leather – and, yes, a bit of mail, too. Gods, were they expecting an invasion at any moment?
Belatedly, Oliver remembered his manners. “This is the Lady Tessa.” He hooked his arm through hers in a show of support. “I’m her cousin, Oliver.”
Rune’s brows shot up. “The bastard? The one who didn’t want to go to war?”
His brother elbowed him in the ribs. “What did I say about that?” he asked from the corner of his mouth. To Oliver: “Ignore him. Mum dropped him on his head as a baby.”
