Chapter One of Sorrel

Chapter 1
The Emissary from the Steppes

"I don't know who he is, but he's come about something important," said Clovermead. She squeezed Auroche with her knees, and her horse moved forward a few inches. "He's a Tansyard, so he looks a little like you, Sorrel. I saw him ride up to the castle yesterday afternoon, and he's six and a half feet if he's an inch, with a face like a marble statue. The guards at the castle door whisked him up to mother's study, and I haven't seen either of them since. I tip-toed to her doorway toward midnight, in case she'd left the door open, so I could peek in. She hadn't, but I saw light under the door and heard them talking. He had a low voice like a bull-Auroche, what are you doing? Don't stop now." Auroche neighed nervously and refused to budge.

"He thinks you are not paying attention to your riding or to him," said Sorrel. He tip-toed through the mud to Auroche, patted him a moment, then stepped away again. "He thinks your jaw is so busy moving that you will send him galloping into the water before you notice anything is wrong. I agree with his suspicions. Stop thinking about this stranger, Clovermead. You can be scatterbrained when you have a saddle and reins to help you, but not when you ride bare-back. Keep your back straight and help Auroche to reach dry land."

"Why? He's thrown me three times today." Clovermead glowered at her horse, but she followed Sorrel's instructions. Auroche whinnied apprehensively as he took another step on the plank laid over the pool of water that filled up half the back courtyard after the latest spring rains. "Shh, Auroche," she whispered. "That puddle's only a few inches deep. Please don't send me into the mud again. It's cold and it squelches." Auroche took another step forward, then stopped. Clovermead pressed his flanks again. "Aren't you curious to see him, Sorrel? I don't think I've seen another Tansyard besides you in all the time I've been in Chandlefort. And he is such a sight! He doesn't just sound like a bull, he's as big as one, too."

"I am not a Tansyard any longer," said Sorrel. He plucked at the yellow sleeve he wore. "I am a Yellowjacket and a Chandleforter now. My compatriots are here."
"That doesn't stop you from talking about the Steppes all the time," said Clovermead. Auroche teetered forward another step. "I know every inch of them, just from listening to you talk. I'd think you'd at least want to say hello to a countryman."

"I love the Steppes," said Sorrel. "That does not mean I wish to chatter with every Tansyard who shows up in Chandlefort. And even if I did-Clovermead, to you Chandleforters I am simply a Tansyard, but my nation was the Cyan Cross Horde. The other hordes were not as strange to me as you farmer-folk are, but they were foreigners, too. And not friends. Most of Cyan Cross' wars were with other hordes. No, I do not need to speak with this man." He clucked his tongue and Auroche straightened up from a dangerous wobble. "Be careful, please! Your mind is wandering. And do not press Auroche so hard. You only need a gentle touch."

"I'm doing my best," said Clovermead. "It's not as easy as you think. Still, I do think I'm getting better at this-" but as she spoke Auroche's front legs rose into the air, Clovermead tumbled from his back, and there was a loud splash and a fountain of muddy water as she landed. When the fountain settled, Clovermead sat sprawled in the puddle. She looked very bedraggled and very brown.

"Phooey," said Clovermead. Grimy droplets trickled down from her yellow hair and over her eyes. She glared at Auroche. "Unruly beast! Back into the saddle you go!"

"You cannot become a bare-back rider in a day," said Sorrel. Fastidiously he flicked a murky globule off his hand. He had managed to dodge most of the mud and to keep his clothes dry. "It is a difficult skill to learn, even when you are not chattering about fascinating strangers." He walked around the puddle to the far end of the plank and clapped his hands. Auroche trotted briskly to him, off the plank and on to dry earth. Sorrel stroked his ears, and Auroche happily rubbed his nose against Sorrel's face.

"Riding bare-back isn't a skill at all," said Clovermead. She let herself sit in the mud puddle. It was satisfyingly melancholy just to let the cold water ripple against her clothes and seep into her skin. "It's something you're born with, like your hair or your eyes. You Tansyards have it, and you can ride without saddle or reins from one end of the Tansy Steppes to the other without wobbling once. We Linstockers don't have it, and we end up in puddles. I give up. I know my limitations."

"It is not three days since you climbed atop a gargoyle on the roof, and then discovered that you could not clamber off so easily as on. I had to haul a ladder up two flights of stairs to get you down, so I remember the incident vividly. Whatever your limitations are, I am sure you are ignorant of them." Sorrel laughed. "I assure you, Clovermead, you are perfectly capable of riding bare-back. All it takes is effort and perseverance. Now, I will grant you that I am particularly expert with horses, and that Chandlefort's Demoiselle rides like a sack of potatoes"-he sidestepped a sudden splatter of mud shooting toward him from the puddle-"but that is the fruit of experience, which you will have in time. Please don't muddy my jacket just now, Clovermead. I must go on parade in an hour, and the captain thinks badly of soldiers in dirty uniforms. Are you staying in that puddle?"

"Why not? I'm better at riding puddles than riding horses. If I stay here long enough I'll grow webbed feet and learn to swim like a duck." She sneezed and jumped up hastily. "Or maybe I'd just get a cold." Clovermead stalked toward Sorrel and glared at him. "I'm through riding today! I've had enough mud for a good long time." Then she stomped over to Auroche while the Tansyard hastily retreated from her muck-stained clothes.

It was already daffodil season in Chandlefort, and summer would be along soon, but a north wind out of the Chaffen Hills had brought a wintry blast to the town this morning. I'm growing soft down here in the southlands, thought Clovermead. Back in Timothy Vale I'd have gone short-sleeved in weather like this. Now I shiver and complain about the cold. She had put on a quilted scarlet jacket and gray flannel trousers that morning to protect her against the chill, but now their wet cloth clung to her from her shoulders to her ankles. Her equally damp locks of hair lay limply against her neck.

Clovermead's hair stretched past her shoulder-blades. She was as freckled as when she came to Chandlefort four years ago, but she had grown much taller. She was five feet and seven inches high-almost as tall as Sorrel. She hadn't acquired much grace with her height, though. The twelve years she'd spent believing she was Clovermead Wickward, daughter of the innkeeper Waxmelt Wickward, had ingrained country manners in her bones. The last four years as Demoiselle Cerelune Cindertallow, daughter and heir of Lady Melisande Cindertallow, had provided her only a veneer of court manners, which tended to rub off when she wasn't concentrating on etiquette. Which was frequently.

Clovermead had also acquired a figure lately. She would never be as buxom as some of the young ladies of Chandlefort, and exercise kept her sinewy, but by now she curved almost as much as her equally athletic mother. Clovermead didn't much care for these changes. All the lordlings in Chandlefort who'd pointed at the scar on her arm or her missing tooth a few years ago gawked at different parts of her now. They stared so much that she'd taken to wearing clothes that were shapeless and large.

Clovermead heard a noise from the parapet at the far end of the courtyard, and she whipped her head up-but it was only the wind rustling through pebbles.
"It could have been Lord Turnbolt or Lord Pattock," Clovermead whispered to her horse. "They're pimply pests, and they've been following me everywhere and peeping at me. Why do they stare like that, Auroche?" Clovermead took a somewhat muddy sugar-cube from a leather pouch in her pocket and fed it to him. Auroche gulped the sugar down without demur: He wasn't a finicky eater. "You're a boy-tell me, would you lose your manners and act like a complete nincompoop the moment you saw a mare? No, don't answer that, you probably would. You're all alike."

"Even on the Steppes," said Sorrel from across the courtyard, "we do not talk to our horses as much as you do, Clovermead. That is because we know they do not speak. Sometimes I think you are astonishingly ignorant of the basic facts of horse-flesh." He chuckled. "Or astonishingly willing to carry on one-sided conversations."

"You are snide," Clovermead informed Sorrel as she began to brush the mud from Auroche's mane. "You have been snide ever since I met you. I have never told you this, but I think you need to know that you will die a snide-bound old coot." Sorrel looked at her blankly. "Hide-bound old coot, snide-bound old coot. Oh, never mind. And I'd been saving that one up for days now."

Sorrel rolled his eyes. "I will complain to Milady," he said. "My snide is not tough enough to endure such terrible puns." His smiling eyes met Clovermead's, and then his easy chuckle got her to laughing, too.

Sorrel's eyes never wavered from Clovermead's face. Her damp clothes pressed against her body, and any other young man in Chandlefort would have looked at them. Clovermead wasn't indecent or anything, but it would have been embarrassing. But Sorrel was a perfect gentleman, without any fuss at all, and Clovermead didn't have to be embarrassed.

Sorrel doesn't stare because he's too busy looking at himself in the mirror, thought Clovermead. Sorrel had always taken care of his appearance, but he had become quite the dandy ever since his promotion last summer to regular trooper in the Yellowjacket Guards. His yellow jacket was always spotless and his boots gleamed in the sun. He put musk on his long, brown hair, tied up in a yellow ribbon, and he had taken to daubing yellow paint around the criss-cross blue tattoos on his cheeks that declared that he had been raised with the Cyan Cross Horde on the Tansy Steppes. He had even bought a new hat to replace the one he had brought with him from the Steppes so many years ago. The new one was also edged with a fox's face, paws, and tail, but the fur was redder, and it shone splendidly in the sun. There wasn't a twenty-year-old in all Chandlefort, Sorrel had assured her more than once, who looked as magnificently handsome as he did.

You are nice to look at, Clovermead thought wistfully, as her eyes darted to his delicate features, his fine brown hair, and his laughing eyes. She didn't let herself look for too long-it would be far more embarrassing to be caught looking at Sorrel than to catch him looking at her. She brushed Auroche's mane even more vigorously. So far as Sorrel knew, Clovermead just thought of him as a friend.

"Excuse me, Demoiselle," Clovermead heard, and she turned to see a redheaded maidservant in a white dress curtsy low to her. "Milady your mother sent me to ask you to her study. You, too, Master Tansyard," she said to Sorrel. "I'm glad to find the two of you together. You're to come at once, she said." The maidservant bobbed her head apologetically.

"Do I have time to change?" asked Clovermead. The maid shook her head. "Is it something to do with that Tansyard giant?" Clovermead asked, rather eagerly.

"He was in the study with Milady, Demoiselle, but I'm sure I don't know what their business is." The maidservant took a step toward Clovermead and Sorrel and whispered to them. "I don't know how Milady has the nerve to be alone with him! He looks like an ogre who's going to pop me into a stewpot and make me his dinner."

"You do not look like you would make more than a snack," said Sorrel. Thoughtfully he licked his fingers. The redhead glared at him, not certain whether to pout or to laugh. "Do not fear," Sorrel continued blithely. "We Tansyards only consume flesh in the evening. You should be safe for some hours to come." The servant looked at him with round and horrified eyes, and Sorrel burped. She squeaked and fled.

"You're terrible," said Clovermead, as she and Sorrel began to walk Auroche to the stables. "I'll have to ask Father to tell her you were only joking. Otherwise she'll tell everyone that she heard it from a Tansyard himself that they really do gobble humans."

"Most will not believe her," said Sorrel. "And those who do will never think well of Tansyards." For a moment anger flickered in his voice. Then it passed. "I should not let it bother me. Some Tansyards will never think well of Chandleforters either."

"Has anyone been giving you trouble?" asked Clovermead anxiously. "I'm awfully sorry. You'd think people would have gotten used to you by now."

"My comrades in the Yellowjackets respect me, but some townsmen and townswomen always find amusement in baiting a foreigner." Sorrel shrugged, patted his sword, and grinned. "Do not worry. I can take care of myself."

"Well, if ever you do need help, I'm always up for a brawl. Or I think I am-I haven't been in one yet." She lifted up her right hand and turned it into a large, clawed, and golden-furred bear paw. "I bet I could make a tavern full of lowlifes turn and run!"

"I am sure you could, Clovermead," said Sorrel. "However, your mother will evict me from the Yellowjackets as soon as she finds out I have led you into a tavern brawl. Regretfully, I must decline your help." Sorrel didn't bat an eye at Clovermead's furry paw. He had turned quite pale four years ago, the first time Clovermead turned into a bear, but he had long since conquered his fears. Now he was the only person beside her parents who never looked at Clovermead with terror in his eyes.

They settled Auroche in the stables, then hurried to Lady Cindertallow's study, up on the top floor of Cindertallow Castle. As they opened the door, her mother looked at Clovermead's mud-spattered clothes and laughed. "You're going to give the laundry maids ulcers. I thought you weren't getting dirty so often lately. What happened?"

"Spring, Mother. I fell into snowbanks during the winter and got wet instead of muddy, that's all." She went to her mother and kissed her on the cheek.

Lady Cindertallow turned her head to keep Clovermead from bumping against her new spectacles. She had worn them for a year now: Her eyes were martyrs to the papers strewn upon her desk. Her hair had faded entirely from golden to straw the last few years, and her crow's feet had grown deep. She wore a black beaver stole over her emerald gown. A roaring fire kept the room uncomfortably warm, to keep Lady Cindertallow from complaining of freezing fingers and chilled toes. She was still a strong fighter and an expert rider, but she had slowed lately.

Clovermead heard a cough behind her and she turned to look at the giant from the Steppes. He really was enormous-a foot taller than Clovermead, twice as broad, with muscles bulging in his jacket of white leather trimmed with ermine. He was in his mid-fifties. His square face had been darkened and his chestnut hair bleached by years of wind and sun. He wore two braids down to his waist, and on each cheek was tattooed a white star. He looked at Clovermead, looked at Sorrel-and his dark eyes suddenly went wide as he saw the blue criss-cross on Sorrel's cheeks. He shot out a question to Sorrel in Tansyard.

Sorrel answered in common tongue. "I wear my tattoos by right. The bear-priests and Low Brandingmen did not catch every warrior of the Horde that night in Bryony Hill."

"Did any others Cyan Cross warriors survive?" the giant rumbled. His accent was thicker than Sorrel's, but comprehensible. "You are the first I have seen these seven years."

"I fled that ambush, that night of slaughter, like a cowardly child, and I survived by sheerest chance. I saw the bear-priests take some of our women and children to Barleymill as slaves, and perhaps a few of them still live as well. But all of Cyan Cross' warriors were killed but me." Sorrel scowled. "I hear White Star Horde is foremost on the Steppes, now that Cyan Cross has been destroyed. Perhaps your Horde Chief takes pride in that fact, though White Star never defeated us in battle and never would have. Tell him not to worry: Cyan Cross Horde will not challenge him again."

"Perhaps the Horde Chief does think such things as he roams the Steppes," said the giant slowly. "But I am here in Chandlefort, and I was only surprised."

"Of course, warrior," said Sorrel, with the faintest edge of disbelief in his voice. "It surprises even me that I am still alive." He turned to salute Lady Cindertallow. "I am at your service, Milady. I beg your pardon for neglecting the proper ceremonies."

"Granted." Lady Cindertallow gestured the three of them to seats in the middle of the room and they all sat down. "Sir, my daughter Clovermead and Trooper Sorrel. Clovermead, Sorrel, our guest is Fetterlock of the White Star Horde."

"I am an emissary from the Horde Chief," said Fetterlock. He smiled a little. "Perhaps I should say that I am an emissary from the Horde Chief's wife. It is more her will than his that I should come. He would not have sent me without her prompting."

"Why are you here?" asked Clovermead. She frowned. "I suppose it's trouble of some sort. Powerful people don't ever seem to send messengers to say they're doing well and to ask after your health."

Fetterlock chuckled. "I am afraid you are correct, Demoiselle. I think you know that the bear-priests built a wooden fort on Bryony Hill after they destroyed Cyan Cross Horde?" Clovermead nodded. "When we came north from the southern Steppes this spring we found that the bear-priests had brought vast quantities of granite blocks to Bryony Hill over the winter. Slaves are erecting a stone fortress there, and the bear-priests will dominate the Steppes when it is completed. Then, one way or another, the Hordes will have to submit to Lord Ursus' rule." Clovermead's scar ached at the sound of Lord Ursus' name, and her missing tooth throbbed. They were the ineradicable reminders that Lord Ursus had once seduced Clovermead with dreams of blood and killing, once possessed her, body and soul. "Yet we cannot evict the bear-priests from Bryony Hill by ourselves," Fetterlock continued. "I have been sent to Chandlefort to ask for your mother's aid."

"I have decided to give it," said Lady Cindertallow. Her voice rang clear but her head was bowed. "As Fetterlock pointed out quite eloquently"-she grimaced-"Ursus' bear-priests will be able to invade Linstock from the east once he has a fortress in Bryony Hill as a base. I've put enough soldiers into the southern forts that Lord Ursus will take serious losses if he sends his main army north from the Thirty Towns, but I don't have nearly enough men to garrison the eastern frontier as well. We need to raze the fort at Bryony Hill this year, before the fortress' stone walls go up. I will be sending an army to the Steppes this summer."

"Am I going to fight with you, mother?" asked Clovermead. Her stomach was queasy. Once she had thought of fighting as a grand adventure, but that was before she had fought and before she had killed. She was good at fighting, but it disgusted her.

She was afraid it would disgust her less the more she fought. Clovermead had vomited the first time she killed. She didn't think she would the second time.

"Perhaps," said Lady Cindertallow. "But I need you for another mission first. Fetterlock will explain." She nodded to the Tansyard.

"I am definitely an emissary from the Horde Chief's wife," said Fetterlock. "I am in some sense an emissary from the Horde Chief. I am not an emissary from the White Star Horde. The Elders have not yet decided to fight Lord Ursus. Before they do, Chandlefort must formally request an alliance with the Horde-and before they accept such an alliance, the Elders will need to be persuaded that Chandlefort will be their ally not just this year, not just next year, but until Lord Ursus is driven entirely from the Steppes. We are very near to Lord Ursus' citadel of Barleymill, and you are far away. The Elders must be convinced that after we have retaken Bryony Hill you will not leave the Horde to face his retaliation alone. Chandlefort must send an ambassador to them." His eyes fell on Clovermead.

"Me?" asked Clovermead. "Mother, do you want me to head out to the Steppes?"

Lady Cindertallow nodded reluctantly. "The White Star Horde will require that I send a high-ranking ambassador." She glanced at Sorrel. "Isn't that so, Trooper?"

"We Tansyards have a high opinion of ourselves," said Sorrel. "If we are to ally ourselves with foreigners, we wish to talk with their leaders, not with servants. Ideally, Milady, you should go to the Steppes yourself. We are told in our stories that your great-grandmother's great-grandmother rode to every corner of the Steppes herself to gain our alliance. If you cannot come yourself, no one of lower rank than the Demoiselle will do."

"I must stay here to ready the Yellowjackets to ride to the Steppes," said Lady Cindertallow. "I'll also have to twist the Mayor of Low Branding's arm to send some of his mercenaries to join us. Sending an army into the Steppes isn't covered under our defensive alliance, but I think I can convince him to help us. After all, Bryony Hill is nearer to Low Branding than it is to Chandlefort."

"Let Ursus do to the Low Brandingmen what he wills," Sorrel whispered, but only Clovermead heard him. His eyes snapped with uncontrollable hatred. He had never forgiven Low Branding for its role in helping Lord Ursus destroy Cyan Cross Horde, even now that the Mayor had allied himself with Chandlefort.

"I don't like the thought of you gallivanting off into the wilderness, Clovermead," Lady Cindertallow continued, "but it seems necessary."

"I don't quite understand," said Clovermead. "I thought Mr. Fetterlock came here to ask for your help, but now I'm supposed to go to ask the White Star Horde to help us?"

"And all the other Hordes as well," said Fetterlock. "White Star has influence with the other Hordes, but it does not speak for them. It would be well for you to make your request to every Horde on the Steppes." He shrugged his shoulders. "It is all very roundabout, Demoiselle, but it is the best way to proceed. The Horde Chief's wife asks you for help, you ask the Horde for help, and everybody feels flattered and needed. And those Elders who waver between fighting Lord Ursus and submitting to him perhaps will fight to aid Chandlefort, from pride, when they would not fight to save themselves."

"You are a very puzzling people," said Clovermead. Fetterlock smiled and shrugged. "What happens if the Hordes turn me down?"

"Then we march our armies back home," said Lady Cindertallow. "We pray to Our Lady that the bear-priests don't ambush us while we are on the Steppes. We settle down inside our walls and wait for the bear-priests to come after us." She frowned. "Don't let the Hordes turn you down, Clovermead."

"I'll do everything I can," said Clovermead seriously. "I swear by Our Lady."

Lady Cindertallow nodded. "Ask the Hordes where we should meet them and send me word in Low Branding. I'll be there with my Yellowjackets within three weeks. From there we can get quickly to any spot in the western Steppes."

Clovermead's eyes lit up. "Sorrel's coming with me, isn't he? That's why you told him to come here, too?"

Lady Cindertallow nodded. "Trooper? I want you to accompany Clovermead-you're the only Yellowjacket who knows the Steppes. But I won't order you to go. I recollect that you told me once that you would have trouble returning to your homeland."

"I fled from the bear-priests and I lived," Sorrel said slowly. "The other warriors were brave and they died." He touched the tattoos on his cheeks. "Anyone who sees these tattoos will guess the truth, that I was a coward, and therefore know that I am an outlaw. On the Steppes, any Tansyard warrior will be able to kill me with impunity."

"That is so," said Fetterlock. "But you wear a yellow jacket, and the Hordes will respect the Cindertallow livery. At least while you ride with the Demoiselle."

"Then I will go," said Sorrel. He smiled at Clovermead. "How can I miss this opportunity to show you the Steppes? You will not appreciate them properly without me to educate you as to their beauties." Then he looked thoughtful, and turned back to Lady Cindertallow. "The Hordes do not like to have foreigners wandering on the Steppes, Milady. No more than two handfuls of soldiers should accompany the Demoiselle."

"Fetterlock said the same." Lady Cindertallow glanced with anxious love at Clovermead, then sighed. "I'll send ten Yellowjackets to accompany you, including Sorrel, and I'll write a letter requesting the Mayor and his men to give you a safe-conduct through Low Branding. Can you leave the day after tomorrow, Clovermead? Once I've given you some lessons in diplomacy, you'll need to leave immediately." Clovermead nodded. "And Clo? I know you mean well, but you have a tendency to be impetuous and hare off on your own. We can't afford any impulsiveness on this mission. Your first priority is to get the Hordes to agree to an alliance. Remember, no one but you can do this."

"You can count on me, mother," said Clovermead. "I don't flibbertigibbet when it's important." Her eyes were large. "But I've never done diplomacy before."

"I'll start teaching you now," said her mother. "We can start with the basics."

"Always be polite, never promise anything, have an army on hand to get people in the mood to do what you want them to do, and when all else fails, lie," Clovermead rattled off. She smiled. "I'm a fast learner."

Fetterlock laughed, a booming rumble. "I do not think she needs any lessons, Milady," he said. He stood, his head nearly scraped the ceiling, and he bowed low toLady Cindertallow. "Please excuse me, Milady. You will want to give your instructions in private." Sorrel stood and bowed, too, and then he and Fetterlock left the room.

Lady Cindertallow waited until she heard their footsteps dwindle. "The first thing I want you to keep in mind," she said, "is that I'm sure that Fetterlock isn't telling the entire truth. Be wary of him until you find out what he's keeping back from us."