Chapter 10

The horses stood ready when I came down from my room, and Mother waited for me by the gate. She frowned when she saw me, and I braced myself for the lecture that I was sure would come. She didn’t disappoint.

“Now, Freja, tell me. What is important when we meet the Hadarims?”

She was fond of those questions, drilling down to see if I had understood my role as the next High Lady. That’s all she cared about nowadays, preparing me for when she would resign.

“We greet them with ‘We offer you water and shelter’.”

She frowned. So she had wanted another answer. There rarely was a right answer to her questions, and she most often found something to remark on.

“I will ask Martha to teach you proper greetings. A High Lady with no sense of a welcome is no High Lady”

She mounted the horse, and I cast a glance at Holger standing behind us. He smiled and then thrust his frail body up on his beast. I mounted mine, and we set off.

I expected to have another lecture on the importance of welcoming as we rode down the street, but Mother must have been deep in thought, because she only sat staring out into the distance. Maybe the war really had taken a toll on her, and her mind wandered to things not existing anywhere else than her imagination.

I took the chance to watch the road as well. People were walking to and fro, and as they saw us approaching, they stopped and bowed. One day, they would be my people, Mother always said. I’d heard it since I was a girl, but it wasn’t until my brother and Father passed away that it had taken on a new meaning. She was obsessed with it now and didn’t miss an opportunity to emphasise the importance of my future to me.

I saw a rider hurrying up the street towards us, and he halted before us and bowed. Mother gestured for him to approach, and he rode forward and stopped by her side.

“My Lady, the Hadarims are not alone. They have travellers with them.”

She frowned.

“Travellers?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

She turned to stare down the valley. She did it for such a long time that I almost thought she had forgotten about the soldier when she turned and dismissed him. We set out again, but I could hear her mumbling to herself as we kept riding.

We seldom got visits nowadays, only refugees forced here by the war, and it was even more unusual to have them travel with the traders. They never let anyone accompanying them. I glanced at Mother. For the first time in a long while, I wanted to ask her what she thought about it, but she was once again peering down the valley, and I didn’t dare to disturb her.