WINDKEEPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "We’ll not be needing anything, Dorrie," she hissed in an authoritative voice that surprised the Prince Regent. He glanced up at Gezelle’s militant face.

  Dorrie made no move to leave. Her frosty eyes glared at Gezelle with warning and she placed clenched fists on flaring and curvaceous hips. "Is that so? Who says?"

  Conar lowered his head, his lips twitching with humor. "Thank you, Dorrie," he said, cutting a chunk of pork chop and spearing it with his fork. When the tavern wench still did not move, he looked up at her. "That will be all." He looked away again, dismissing her. As Dorrie stomped away, he did not missed Gezelle’s hurmpf of finality. He had to take a hasty gulp of chilled apple cider to keep from laughing.

  For a long moment, silence filled the common room. Conar ate his morning meal with all the gusto of a man whose carnal appetites cried out for energy-giving sustenance. When he became aware of Gezelle’s worried face, he stopped eating. "Is something wrong, Mam’selle?"

  Gezelle started in embarrassment and shame. "I shouldn’t have given that girl orders, Your Grace."

  "Why not? You’re no longer a servant, ’Zelle. You have been given your freedom. You’re a lady who now serves as companion to the Lady Liza." He laid down his fork and took up his napkin. "You are above that tart in social standing. It was well within your right to give her orders, and she had best heed those orders or I will know why." He wiped his mouth on his napkin and placed it beside his plate. He laid his hand over Gezelle’s, feeling her flinch. "And I thank you for handling a situation I found most uncomfortable." He withdrew his touch. "I did not wish the wench’s attention or her overture."

  Gezelle’s face turned redder still beneath his close scrutiny. "I knew you did not, Your Grace."

  He stood and thrust his hand into the pocket of his breeches, digging out some gold coins. "I’ll settle up with the innkeeper and see to having our mounts readied. Would you go see what’s taking my lady so gods-be-damned long?"

  Gezelle smiled at her Prince’s unconscious possession of the lady. Her heart was light as she climbed the stairs to the upper rooms. They made such a fine pair, this god of sunshine, and this lady of the midnight hair. Sighing with dreamy regard to just how right these two beautiful people were for one another, Gezelle tapped lightly at the Prince Regent’s door and smiled as Liza bid her enter.

  * * *

  Conar looked in on the innkeeper’s wife as she sat beside her cooking pot, peeling potatoes for the noon meal. He motioned for the rotund lady to stay seated.

  "I wanted to compliment you, Madame Ruck, on the wonderful meals you have always prepared for us. If I stay much longer, they’d have to send a barrel maker’s wagon to cart me home." He came to stand beside her then hunkered down, pilfering a chunk of potato from her large bowl.

  "That’s not good for you!" Meggie Ruck said automatically, swatting at the young man’s hand. Her eyes widened as he looked at her with surprise. "Your Grace, I am…" she began, but he covered one rough, work-reddened hand with his own.

  "You sounded just like my mama." He laughed and squeezed her fingers. "She wouldn’t let me eat raw spuds, either."

  "Her Majesty was a great lady."

  His face darkened with memory. "Aye, Meggie, that she was." He patted her hand and laid two gold sovereigns on the table beside her. "That should cover our room and board." He added another sovereign. "And the furniture you were forced to burn."

  Meggie stared at the coins. Three gold sovereigns were more than she and Harry would see in six month’s time. She shook her head, scooping up the gold and extending them to her Overlord.

  " ’Tis too much, Your Grace!" It wasn’t mannerly to be sitting in the Prince Regent’s presence and she tried to stand, but the young man put his hand on her shoulder to prevent her.

  "I want to." Bending over, he placed a light kiss on her plump cheek, hugging her to him in a warm, compassionate embrace. "Thank you for making my stay so wonderful, Meggie."

  Meggie Ruck could only stare as her Prince straightened, winking at her with that little-boy charm she had come to adore. His smile as he turned to leave would be forever stored in her memories.

  "The Wind be always at your back, Meggie Ruck," he whispered.

  Meggie sat frozen to her chair as she watched him leave. It took her a long time to be able to bring her hand, trembling as it was, to her cheek to touch the tingled flesh. He had kissed her, she thought with dazed wonder. Her Prince, her future King, had kissed her. She could still feel the feather-soft caress of those sensual lips, lips women were known to fight for, on her flesh.

  "The Wind be always at your back," she said in a breathy whisper and felt a tear ease down her weathered cheek.

  After paying the innkeeper for housing their horses, a tribute Harry Ruck had not wanted to accept, Conar whistled as he walked to the stables. He declined the stable boy’s help in saddling Seayearner and set about the task himself, crooning to the great black beast as he slid the saddle over ’Yearner’s broad back. He moved then to Liza’s little gray mare and wasn’t in the least surprised when the filly allowed him to saddle her with nothing more than a nuzzle of his cheek.

  He could see the stable boy gawking at him with wonder. The boy no doubt thought his Prince had taken leave of his senses. Royalty did not saddle their own mounts when there were servants about to do it.

  Conar grinned wickedly to himself. There were many things the old Conar wouldn’t have done, he thought. With his mind on the lady in the tavern, he knew there were going to be a few things the new Conar might do that would make the world think him crazy. He didn’t care. His world was right for the first time in his life and he would be damned if he would ever let it go dark and bleak again.

  Gezelle was sitting on the stairs, her hands clenched tightly together between her knees. Her face was pale and pinched as she glanced up at him.

  Conar’s heart began to pound and he felt a wicked cold seep into the pit of his stomach. "What is it?"

  Gezelle began to cry.

  "Why in the hell are you crying?" He felt as though his world was grinding to a halt and he could feel the blood rushing to his ears.

  "She’s gone, Your Grace," Gezelle whispered. "Our lady’s gone."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Alarm filled his blue eyes as he glanced up the stairs, expecting to see Liza standing at the top. He took a step toward the stairs.

  "She left, Your Grace." Gezelle’s voice was filled with misery. Tears slid down her cheeks and she broke down in heaving sobs. She barely felt him push by her as he took the steps at a near-run. She could hear him calling the lady’s name as he opened and shut every door above.

  His shout echoed through the still tavern as he thundered down the stairs. He grabbed Gezelle’s arms and drew her to stand.

  "Where is she?" He shook the girl. "Where did she go?"

  "She said to tell you…to say…" Gezelle couldn’t finish, for her throat was closing with tears.

  He shook her again. The girl’s head wobbled on her fragile shoulders and she grunted with pain, but Conar did not heed her soft whimper. "Tell me what?"

  "To say goodbye for her."

  "Goodbye?" Conar’s voice lowered to a stunned whisper. Confusion, pain, even wounded pride filled his pale face.

  "She left you a note, Your Grace." Gezelle dug into her dress and produced a white sheet of folded paper. She extended it, flinching as he jerked it out of her hand.

  Conar glanced at the parchment, then, without reading it, crumpled it and stuffed it in his pocket. "Did she say where she was going?" At Gezelle’s shake of her head, he clenched his teeth to keep from bellowing. "Did she say where her home was?" When the girl shook her head again, he wanted to smash something.

  "Damn it!" he yelled and spun around to face the four people who had gathered at the kitchen door, having all come at a run when his angry cries reached their ears. His anger swung from the innkeeper, to the serving wench, to the stable boy, and finally came to rest on
the innkeeper’s wife.

  He opened his mouth to scream at the woman, but stopped before he could. He shook his head to clear away the anger, but the fury within him was boiling over. He doubled his hands into fists.

  "She said nothing to us, Your Grace," the innkeeper answered for his people without being asked. "I did not hear her leave."

  "We’ll help you look for her, Your Grace," Meggie told him.

  "Thank you, Madame Ruck," Conar said in as calm and pleasant voice as he could muster, "but I can travel faster on my own. Stay here, Mam’selle," he said over his shoulder to Gezelle.

  "You’re going after her?" Gezelle called.

  Conar turned on her as he reached the door, his face ugly with rage. "What do you think?"

  "I think you won’t find her, Your Grace."

  "Oh, I’ll find her," he spat, yanking open the door. "I’ll find her if I have to take this gods-be-damned kingdom apart stone by bloody stone!"

  He slammed the door with a loud bang.

  * * *

  Sometime toward dawn of the following day, Gezelle awoke to hard pounding on her door. When she opened the portal, she drew in a sharp breath as she took in the appearance of the man standing on the threshold.

  Conar’s eyes were haunted; his face was pallid with worry; his mouth was set in a hard grimace. Dark circles accentuated the dullness in his eyes, the tiredness of his face.

  "How did you know I wouldn’t find her?" His voice was hoarse as though he had been shouting the entire time he had been gone.

  She took a moment before she could answer. The hurt look worried her and she didn’t want to add to his misery. She was trying to decide how best to tell him her news.

  He solved her dilemma.

  Conar pushed past her and stalked into the room. "If you know something, Mam’selle, you’d best tell me now. I’m in no mood for equivocating."

  She took a deep breath as she watched him sit impatiently on the edge of her bed. Letting out her nervousness along with her breath, she met his gaze.

  "That last eve at Norus something strange happened, Your Grace. You sent me after the wine for the lady but when I brought it to her, she didn’t want it. She let me have it." The girl ducked her head in embarrassment. When she looked up again, she could see he was struggling to control his rage and no doubt his desire to do her bodily harm.

  "It, it made me real sleepy. I’ve never had wine before and I don’t wish to sample its wonders ever again." She bit her lip as he growled with anger. "I remember someone coming to the door before I fell asleep. A man came. I think it was Sir Belvoir, the Master-at-Arms, but I was so sleepy I couldn’t truly see him all that well. I heard him speaking, but I couldn’t make out the words because he was talking so low. He seemed very upset and when the lady answered him, she was as mad as I’ve ever heard a lady get."

  "What the hell does any of this have to do with where Liza went?"

  "If you’ll be patient, Your Grace, I will tell you!" Gezelle shot back amazed she could speak in such a manner to her Overlord. Obviously he was, too, for he looked at her with an expression of surprise and admiration. At least she thought it could well be admiration and took heart that he hadn’t thundered at her again.

  "I heard her tell this man that she would take care of everything, for him not to worry. Then she said she would be sure to tell her mother of his kindness."

  "Her mother?" Conar’s eyes flared with surprise. "How would the man know her mother?" He thought back to the Master-at-Arms, at the way Belvoir looked with his black hair and green eyes. He remembered the black dagger stuck in the top of the knight’s boot, a dagger similar to those Liza carried, and grimaced in speculation. "Could they be kin?"

  "I truly don’t know, Your Grace. All I do know is she told him to get word to the keep that she was on her way to Boreas with the Prince Regent. She told him to be careful whose ears heard that message and then she closed the door and went to the fireplace."

  "Then she must know Belvoir." His mind was working as he pondered the possibility of Belvoir and Liza being from the same place; but where the hell was that?

  "I think she must know him, Your Grace. He seemed too concerned with the lady’s welfare for him to be a stranger."

  "Aye, that he did." Conar ran a distracted hand through his tousled hair and stood, his hand still locked in the thick gold tresses. "What happened then?"

  "The lady knelt by the fire, staring hard into the flames, and then she began to rub that black stone she wears around her neck."

  "The rune stone."

  "Aye."

  He walked to the window and eased away the curtain with his knuckles. Squinting into the rosy glow of the morning sun, he combed his fingers through his hair and then let his hand drop. "Then what?"

  "She spoke to the fire, Your Grace." When he glanced back at her with surprise, she nodded to assure him he had heard correctly. "She spoke the Old Language. It’s the language my old granny used when she talked to the animals and such."

  "A foreign language?"

  "No, Your Grace. The language of the Great Lady."

  "You speak the language of the Multitude?" When the girl shook her head in denial, he snarled, "Then how the hell do you know it was that particular language?"

  "My granny taught me some of the protective words. Words to ward off ills and the like."

  "And just how did she know this language?" He couldn’t believe the girl was telling the truth. How did a servant come by such knowledge?

  "My granny was a maid to one of the Daughters long before my mother was born. She was one of the Handmaidens of the Lady Moira Hesar before she left Virago."

  Stunned disbelief hit him and he let go the curtain. "She was one of my mother’s women?"

  "Before she married her first husband, the gentleman who died. When your mother married your father, our King, my granny came from Virago to Serenia with the new Queen."

  "If your granny knew the protective words she taught you, then she was no mere handmaiden, Mam’selle. Was she?"

  "I don’t know what her position was with the Queen. All I know is that when my granny got too old to work, she moved to the little cottage by the King’s game preserve and then my mother came there to birth me when she was fourteen. I never knew who my father was, but I think he was a gentleman at the court because that is where my mother was born and where she held a job as a seamstress."

  He could not have cared less about the girl’s parentage. He was interested in knowing how Liza had come by her knowledge of the Multitude’s language. Was she, too, a handmaiden to a Daughter? "What happened when she spoke to the fire?"

  "The room became very, very cold, Your Grace. The fire in the hearth leapt and sputtered, but the room was like a freezing January day. I thought a window might be open, for a wind was whistling." Gezelle shook her head as though to deny what she was about to say. "Then I thought I saw things in the fire. Things that made little noises like cats purring. The lady was purring, too, except she was purring in that strange language."

  "Cat things," he said in a flat, disbelieving voice.

  "I know it sounds odd, and I know I was sleepy, but I swear I saw them, Your Grace."

  "So she spoke to these cat things. What did she say to them?"

  "She was chanting a protection spell. I don’t know what the words mean, all I know is they have great power to ward off the beasties from the night. My granny used to sit before the fire on the eve of the Windless Night and chant them over and over."

  Conar hung his head with exasperation. Would the girl never finish her tale? "What happened after she said the incantation?"

  "She was angry, Your Grace, very angry. When she got up, that same man was waiting at the door for her and I heard him tell her he would take her to the place where her man was being kept."

  "Her man?" Conar ground his teeth. "And what man was that?"

  Gezelle flinched at his tone. "I don’t know, Your Grace."

  He returned his atten
tion to the window. Had there been a man at Norus waiting for Liza? Who could he be? Could all of this have been planned, his meeting Liza?

  "So he took her to meet this man?" Conar snarled.

  "No, Milord. She told the man it wasn’t necessary for him to go with her. She said her love would take her there." Gezelle saw his shoulders sag with defeat and felt a hurt go through her like nothing she had ever known. "She loves you, Your Grace."

  "Aye, so she said," he said bitterly.

  "I believe it with all my heart."

  "I found no trace of her horse in the stable even though I had saddled it myself not five minutes before I came in to get her. There were no hoof prints leading away from the tavern and there should have been hoof prints in all the mud. The stable boy didn’t leave until he heard all the commotion in the tavern. He neither saw nor heard that mare leave nor did he see anyone enter the stable." He leaned his head against the cool window glass. "How could that be?"

  "What did her note say?"

  He blinked. "Damn! I haven’t read it!" He pulled the parchment from his leather jacket, smoothing the paper on his knee. He scanned the writing once, twice, three times then hissed, tossing the note on the bed. "She didn’t say anything at all to you?"

  "We were on the stairway, Your Grace. She was behind me and I heard her stop. I looked back at her and she was looking behind her, over her shoulder as though someone had called her name. I saw her trembling as with the ague. I thought something ailed her, but when I asked her what was wrong, she just shook her head.

  "She looked down at me with the saddest expression I have ever seen and then she reached into her sleeve and drew out the note, telling me to bid you goodbye for her. I asked her where she was going. She just smiled, but that smile never reached her eyes, Your Grace. It was as though she was smiling with her lips, but her heart was breaking. I looked at the note, and I swear to you, Your Grace, by the holy name of Alel, when I looked up again, she was gone. She had vanished on the stairs."

  Gezelle seemed to truly believe what she was telling him, but Conar found it hard to accept. He stared at her for a long time, seeing the worry in her eyes, feeling her own bewildered pain at Liza’s sudden departure. A slow anger began to seethe in the blue depths of his eyes. Emotion after emotion grew until he looked away.