Read Online Fire of the Soul by Flora Speer - Free Book Online Page B

out a hand to stop her.
    “I’ll see to the logs later,” he said. “Here,
Calia, sit and drink a cup of wine with me.”
    “You aren’t sitting,” she pointed out, having
immediately noticed the way he was pacing back and forth in front
of the fire, displaying a barely contained energy that was at odds
with his usual self-control. She could not wonder that he was moved
by anger at being forced to do something he had plainly said
several times that he did not want to do. Any proud man would react
in the same way. He pushed an overfull cup of wine into her hand,
spilling a good part of it and not seeming to notice. Calia watched
him in fascination.
    “Has my grandmother gone mad?” he
demanded.
    “She’s not mad, merely determined. She has
made up her mind and there’s an end to all discussion.” Calia
sipped at the wine, wishing it would soothe her own seething
emotions and knowing it would not. “Don’t try to stop her, Garit.
Were you to lock her in her room, or even into the storage cellar,
she’d find a way to escape and proceed with her plan. There are
folk here at Saumar who love her enough to follow any order she
gives.”
    “I know it. I’m one of those folk, and I
believe you are, too. Still, I worry about her.” Garit had been
pacing toward the far end of the hall as he spoke. Now he halted,
spun around, and started back toward Calia. “Why this sudden
decision to return to a place she despises?”
    “Because you are here to escort her,” Calia
said, “and because you brought the news of your stepmother’s
remarriage. That disturbed her, I think. Lady Elgida is truly
worried about those two boys.”
    “She’s never met them, or their mother,
either. Why should she suddenly care so much?” he asked, glaring at
her.
    Calia took some time to think of a reason he
would accept, sipping her wine and trying to look as if she was
considering all aspects of his question before responding to it.
She hated having to lie to Garit, but Lady Elgida had twice
forbidden her to tell him the true answer to his question. So she
talked around the issue of Mallory and his ambitions, while still
providing as much warning as she dared.
    “Perhaps,” she said, “your grandmother’s
reasoning has to do with her firm belief that everyone who lives in
Kantia is treacherous. I have listened to her stories about the
intrigues of Kantian noblemen, and some of those tales chilled my
blood. She may genuinely fear that your little brothers will be
killed by an overly ambitious guardian, or by some other noble,
possibly a distant relative who imagines he would have a claim to
Kinath if only Belai and Kinen were out of the way.”
    “So she intends to ride to the rescue like a
knight errant?” he said, looking faintly amused and no longer very
angry. “At her age?”
    “She is a gallant lady.”
    “So she is. She is also the most stubborn
person I have ever known. I foolishly thought she’d have mellowed
with time, but she hasn’t changed since I was a boy of seven and
she suddenly decided to leave Kinath and return to Saumar.” Garit
drew a long breath. “Well, I suppose there’s naught left for me to
do but ride to Port Moren and find a ship. If I don’t do her
bidding, she’ll find someone else who will, and who knows what
accommodations you ladies will have to endure then?”
    “A lame horse on a muddy road?” Calia
suggested, giving in to her longing to see him smile.
    “More likely, a leaky tub of a ship in a high
sea,” he said, his hard face relaxing just a little. “We will travel all the way to Kinath by ship, because that is
what she has decided.”
    “Even if we are all seasick?” Calia asked,
still hoping for his smile.
    “My grandmother’s strong-mindedness led her
into trouble several times when she was young,” Garit said. “The
men around her called it foolish willfulness. I do believe that’s
why she dislikes Kantia so much, and why the Kantians were so glad
to see her