“Why not?” At his stricken expression, she added, “All right, we wouldn’t take just anyone. But people who have the same sense of duty and independent spirit that all Riders do. Look, when Lil Ambrioth formed the Green Riders, it was during a time of war. The brooches were created to call people with innate abilities to the king’s service, abilities so minor they were useless without a device to augment them. You could say the original Riders were misfits—too minor in ability to be of any consequence to those with real power, and yet unable to fit in with those who were mundane. Their formation as a unit was out of desperation during a time of war. Might the messenger service have looked different if it was formed during a time of peace? You don’t have to have a special ability to ride a horse and deliver a message. Much of what we do in the course of our duties does not require the use of magic.”

They halted by her door at officers quarters.

“It is difficult to know exactly what Lil Ambrioth intended when she formed the Green Riders,” Connly said. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yes, it was,” Laren agreed. “And do we know for sure there weren’t Riders of mundane origin among their ranks?”

“I can see the attraction of increasing our force,” Mara said, “but what would that do to our cohesiveness as a unit? Our abilities, the brooches we wear, bind us together, make us strong. Would bringing in outsiders weaken us?”

“If we regard them as outsiders,” Laren replied, “yes. I am not suggesting we suddenly start recruiting and accepting people without magical abilities into our ranks, but I think it is worth thinking about and discussing. We’ll talk about it again, but I’d like the two of you to ruminate on it for a while. Then, if we decide it is worth pursuing, I’ll present it to the king. He is the one who would make the final decision, after all.”

Mara and Connly exchanged uneasy glances. The idea of allowing people without abilities into the Green Riders was a radical one. She had not expected their enthusiastic endorsement, but it was good to get them thinking it over.

She dismissed them and entered her quarters, sighing at the relative warmth within. She would make some willowbark tea and rest, but afterward, she must throw herself back into the world of endless meetings and reports. She did not think, however, with even those distractions, that she’d get the interesting problem of Anna the ash girl out of her mind.

THE POET’S VISIT

Slee disliked the intrusion, but tolerated it because it filled the Beautiful One with delight, and when she was delighted, her radiance was nearly blinding. The poet sat in the chair opposite them sipping tea, and wrapped in her cloak for she said the room felt chilly. Slee felt the opposite, but he ensured the Beautiful One was wrapped in blankets so that she was comfortable.

Slee did not see much in the person of the poet. She was round with ordinary brown eyes and faded hair, and in her middle years, but when she read her poems, Slee learned that words could be music the way they sounded together, and the images they rendered in the mind as fine as any painting by a master. It was song without music. Slee was not sure how to capture the beauty to add to his collection, for the words were ephemeral, drifting in the air, vanishing before him after providing the most intoxicating visions. The words were laid down in a book, but seeing them printed on the page seemed so prosaic. He was not sure he could recreate the magic of having the words read to him.

“From where do you get your inspiration?” the Beautiful One asked.

“Many places, Your Majesty,” Lady Amalya replied. “From couples who have had lengthy marriages, to young lovers like yourselves, if I may be so bold. One hears of how cold and loveless royal marriages can be.”

The Beautiful One’s smile almost melted Slee. He had his arm around her shoulders and was really beginning to think of himself as the Zachary. He kept meaning to return to his lair to contend with the real Zachary, but he could not tear himself from the Beautiful One’s side.

“In fact,” Lady Amalya was saying, “just seeing the two of you together makes me eager for pen and paper.”

“Perhaps,” the Beautiful One said, “it is your words that have inspired us. We have been reading them to one another, haven’t we, dearest.”

Slee nodded. “Yes.”

“You are the perfect portrait,” Lady Amalya said, “of love, the strong warrior king and his lady, the enchanting queen. Would it be permissible for me to use you as inspiration? To immortalize you in verse?”

“What do you think?” the Beautiful One asked. “Should we be immortalized in the poetry of Lady Amalya Whitewren?”

Her eyes hypnotized him. “Yes, my love.”

“That is wonderful,” Lady Amalya said. “You are very gracious to a humble poet.”

When the Beautiful One’s gaze left him, the light dimmed in Slee’s vision just a tiny bit.

“Will you write it in a sonnet?” she asked the poet.

Lady Amalya leaned forward as if to tell a secret. “It may seem scandalous, but I’ve been experimenting with—” and here she whispered, “free verse.”

The Beautiful One brightened once more. “Truly? That is very daring of you.”

“Art, my lady, should be daring. For too long the old graybeards of the literary world have held sway in their judgments of what is art and what is not. It is time to break the mold, so to speak.”

The two carried on an animated discussion that Slee was content to just watch. It was not out of character for the Zachary to sit back and be remote, to listen thoughtfully and speak only when he had something useful to say. So Slee mainly watched his Beautiful One, the light in her eyes, the curve of her neck, the way she smiled.