The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

still have an eavesdropping rogue to find.” Darville dismissed the suggestion.
    “I’ve got to take Katrina home, Your Grace. Now.”
    Three deep breaths and the void beckoned him. “Come, Amaranth.” The flywacket leaped into his arms. Three more breaths and he sent them both into the void in search of his true love.

Chapter 22
     
    Z ebbiah hustled Jaranda and the pack beast onto the sailing vessel amidst shouts for haste from the captain and crew—who all looked amazingly like the Rover except they wore blue and green on their black clothing instead of purple and red. The pack beast protested the plank up to the ship’s deck vehemently and tried to sit down again in the middle of it.
    The woman pushed the animal from behind with a sharp stick, trying her best to keep it from parking its rear anywhere but on the deck. Zebbiah called no orders to her, nor did he look to see if she followed. They had made a bargain; therefore, he must presume she followed.
    Eight passengers, all dressed in rough clothing, moved abruptly to the far side of the open-decked vessel giving the Rover and his beast more than enough room to settle for the long voyage upriver.
    The woman inspected the other passengers openly. All of the women but one wore a single plait that started at the crown and gathered closely to the head to the nape where it broke free into a thick rope of a braid. Two of them had not bothered with the complex four strand plait but sufficed with the simpler three strand braid. The other woman wore two plaits that started at her temples and stayed close to her head to the nape, then swung free for a short space and joined into a single thick plait halfway down her back. She must come from a merchant family. The others were all peasants.
    Not knowing who she was or what her status was, the unnamed woman had gathered her own hair into a thick knot at her own nape. Jaranda’s hair, she had tied back with a green ribbon to match her dress. They, like their fellow passengers, wore sturdy dark skirts and vests with white, long-sleeved shifts beneath.
    She caught the eye of the woman wearing two plaits. The merchant’s wife turned up her nose and spun on her heel to face the water on the other side of the vessel. The peasant women followed suit.
    The men talked amongst themselves and paid no attention to the newcomers.
    Jaranda did not seem to care about the people. She skipped about looking at everything, watching the crew as they cast off the lines and set the sail.
    “Zebbiah, what plagues them?” the woman whispered to her traveling companion.
    He looked up from tending to the stubborn beast that carried all their worldly wealth and supplies.
    “We made them late. They are displeased.” He shrugged and returned to the beast’s reins, tethering them to a brass ring embedded into the decking.
    “ ’Tis more than that, Zebbiah. Displeasure at our tardiness would evoke curses and grumbling, not this silent disdain.” Why did she know that? An image, a very old image, flashed across her mind’s eye. She stood and watched a parade of noblemen and courtiers as they exited the king’s audience chamber. One of them turned and faced her squarely. “This war with Coronnan will benefit no one. No one. We’d be better off governing ourselves than submitting to his demands for more money, more war, more slaves, more sacrifices.”
    She tried to put a name to the man’s face. She tried to place herself in the crowd. She tried to remember who he was.
    The images faded to mists.
    “You remembering something?” Zebbiah asked.
    “Not quite. Has our country been at war long?”
    “Over three years.” No further comment good or bad. No information as to the cause. Just that war had become a part of life.
    “And is all this devastation a part of the war?” She swept a hand to include the city behind the docks that drifted farther and farther away.
    “Partly.”
    She raised her eyebrows, waiting for more information. He sat down on a cargo bale and began plaiting a piece of leather he drew from the panniers.
    Slightly miffed, she marched over to the women crowding against the far railing. “Good morning, ladies. Are you traveling all the way to the end of the river?” she asked politely.
    Two-plaits sniffed as if she smelled something rancid. “Riffraff, tainting true-blood with dark-eyed outlanders,” she spat.
    “Wouldn’t have this problem if the council hadn’t made mixed marriages legal so Queen