Children of Enchantment Read Free

then a few months later, just when everything had begun to settle, he brought her.”
    “What could the King ever have seen in her?” asked Peregrine, holding out her hand to catch the snow.
    “Who knows what men see? She was carrying his child—little Lady Elsemone. Gartred was, and still is, very beautiful. The King’s
     eye for women—some say it will be his downfall.” Jaboa shook her head and chuckled. “As if anything could bring him down.”
    Peregrine did not answer. In the time she’d been in Ahga, she’d had very little to do with the King. This year, the court
     had not even been back from the summer residence at Minnis Saul two weeks when Abelard had left on his journey south. She
     couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to him.
    The King was her guardian of necessity, nothing more. If only the Consort could be the same. She watched the flakes drift
     onto her upturned palm, soft as a lover’s kiss. She thought of Roderic again and brushed the snow away. Where was he? she
     wondered. Was it snowing in Atland? Was he warm and safe and dry? Or even now, was he in the midst of some battle, dodging
     razor spears, fighting the hideously deformed Muten hordes?
    Peregrine shuddered. She had never seen a Muten, and she hoped she never would. She had heard the stories told around the
     hearths in Ahga since she had come to live there three years ago as a sixteen-year-old orphan, her father’s lands and title
     forfeit as dictated by the terms of surrender imposed by the King after Mortmain’s Rebellion so many years ago. If she had
     been a boy, Abelard would have allowed her to return to the fog-bound coast and gently shivering sands of her father’s tiny
     estate on the very edges of the Vada Valley when she turned eighteen. She had thought when she had come here that the best
     she could hope for was marriage with some retainer of the King, her hand and her father’s title reward for some service well
     rendered.
    But now, she thought as she shifted her weight on the cold stone, now she’d had these last few months with Roderic, and she
     preferred not to think about the distant future. It was possible that the King might look favorably on a marriage with his
     heir—what need did Roderic have of great estates? And if this baby were a boy … ? Only let him come home safe and whole, she
     prayed to the One and the Three. Let him see his child’s face. Let me lie with him once more. If only he’d send some word.
     But although messengers came and went from distant Atland with some regularity, there had been no message at all for her.
    “Are you cold, child? We ought to go in.” Jaboa stood up, brushing the snow off her gray skirts, flapping her shawl so that
     she reminded Peregrine of a fat, full-breasted pigeon.
    Peregrine heaved herself to her feet, wondering if Jaboa, so long married, had learned not to miss Brand. “I suppose we must.”
     She would have preferred to freeze in the still evening than return to the hot chaos of the great hall, where Gartred strode
     back and forth across the dais, blaring orders to anyone hapless enough to stray within hearing, no matter what their duties
     or their rank. Even Roderic’s old tutor, iron-bearded General Garrick, had been pressed into service, forced to raise and
     lower the garlands decorating the mantels as Gartred snapped her fingers impatiently. Garrick had never looked submissive
     when he dealt with Roderic. Sudden tears stung her eyes. Why must everything remind her of Roderic? Even this courtyard—this
     was the very place she had stood on the day he had first noticed her. “I wish—” she began, and broke off with a little catch
     in her throat.
    “Now, now. There, there. He’ll come home. Don’t you worry.” Jaboa reached over and squeezed Peregrine’s hand.
    “If he’d only send me a letter—something, anything. Even just a line or two, to let me know he’s all right.”
    “Tsk, tsk. Don’t fret. That’s the