70
The ebony carriage emblazoned with the Queen’s arms bowled along the road west from Manissa. Four of the Queen’s guard rode ahead of it and four behind. From inside, Toriana watched the fields of wheat pass by. The plants were young and green but smaller than at this time in years past. Once more, the crop had been depressingly meagre. She sighed and leaned back against the cushions so she wouldn’t have to keep looking at it. In the back of her mind, the faintest dread niggled at her that the land and the climate were out of harmony because of her disruption of the true line. But if ever this thought threatened to surface, she quelled it mercilessly.
Well, she was doing all she could to rectify the situation. She was about to annex the rich farming lands of southern Carrador. That wou
