Prince and Future... Dad?

by Christine Rimmer

  Well, fine. If he was lurking nearby, waiting for her to wake up, she’d give him what he was waiting for.

  Madly, she grunted and groaned and writhed, lifting and dropping her head—though it made it ache even worse to do it—and her feet, too, pounding them against the mattress, making the springs beneath creak and groan.

  Then, with a suddenness that stunned even her, she lay still, her heart beating as if it would burst from her chest, her breath tearing in and out through her nose.

  Nothing.

  A good chance, then, that she was alone.

  Carefully she moved, testing the boundaries.

  A single bed—definitely. Pitifully narrow, bucked up against a dirt wall on one side, the other dropping off into nothing. She straightened her legs all the way and felt the shape of a curved metal footboard. Inching upward, she felt the cold metal bar at the top. Judging by all the squeaking, it had to be an old single-spring bed.

  So okay. She was on a dirty mattress on an ancient, narrow bed. That was something. That was…a boundary to push.

  How long, she wondered, had she been unconscious? Had her driver reached the house? Did Finn know she’d been at the gate?

  Oh, she had a hundred questions and no answers at all.

  So maybe she’d do better to forget all the questions for now. Her job, right this minute, was to get loose and then try to find the way out.

  She began wriggling her wrists, working to loosen the ropes. It took surprising concentration and effort, with her hands behind her, lying on one side. But that was a good thing—she felt warmer already, with the exertion. And her mind was on the task she’d set herself, not on what was going to happen when—and if—Cauley came back.

  Or, maybe worse, what would happen if he never did.

  As she worked at the knots, they did seem to loosen a little. Okay, it could be wishful thinking, but so what? False hope was a fine thing in a situation like this.

  Her own weight on her left arm slowed her down. She rolled to her stomach, but that put her face into the pillow and made it hard to breathe. Plus, the pull of gravity at her shoulders and elbows made it all the more difficult to strain against the rope.

  Grunting and huffing, she managed to wriggle her body, inching like a worm, squirming like a bug on a pin, until she reached a seated position, her back to the dirt wall beside the bed, her feet hanging over the other side of the mattress. Now she could lean forward or arch slightly against the wall. Either way, both hands were unencumbered by the weight of her torso.

  She struggled for another measureless span of time, and then she saw the light. It was coming from a door-sized hole to her right, down in the corner, past the end of the bed.

  The golden glow, growing brighter, allowed her to take quick stock of her surroundings: an earthen chamber, perhaps twelve by eight feet. There was a rough table beside the bed and a crude ladder-back chair against the dirt wall across from her. Another narrow tunnel led off into shadow a foot or two from the chair. In the far corner, she spotted some kind of crude gas heater, unlit, a coil of rope and a roll of silver tape beside it. A shovel and a rake. Tattered magazines and a candle—no matches, damn it—on the table.

  The light grew brighter. Liv sat very still, waiting.

  The light—an oil lamp—entered the room, with Cauley carrying it. He still had on that hooded slicker. It was wet, and he had the hood up. He stopped at the foot of the bed and regarded her. Water dripped from the slicker, plopping to the floor. The lantern light flooded upward beneath his chin, making his gaunt face look strange and ghoulish.

  “You woke up,” he said, looking vaguely bewildered, as if he’d doubted she’d ever regain consciousness.

  She sat utterly still, her heart a drumbeat in her ears, and stared steadily back at him. It took all her considerable will to keep from grunting and squirming like a mad thing. Her dignity, at that moment, was all she had. And besides, she didn’t want him to decide he ought to check the ropes he’d tied her with, possibly to tighten them even more.

  He regarded her reproachfully, as if it was somehow her fault that he’d knocked her out and carried her here. “They’re all looking for you,” he said at last. “And for me, too, I got no doubt. Dag musta told them he sent me to open the gate.”

  Lifting a hand, he pushed back the hood. Suddenly he wasn’t a ghoul anymore, just a very lost boy who’d done something rash that he deeply regretted.

  He went and set the lamp on the table, then dropped into the chair across from the bed. “I don’t know what to do now. It seemed the right thing, for a minute there. The right thing to do for Eveline. To nab you. She’s mad because you made her brother sad. Eveline…” For a moment, he looked as if he might burst into tears. He stared down at the dirt between his battered boots. “She don’t love me anymore. I had an idea that maybe she’d love me again if I made sure you were gone for good.” He lifted his head then and looked across at Liv. “Why did you make the prince sad?”

  And how was she supposed to answer that, with her mouth taped shut? She glared at him.

  He grunted. “Well, I guess you ain’t talking. Not unless I take off the tape. And I guess I won’t. I guess that wouldn’t be so smart. I don’t think they could hear you, if you screamed. But there’s no need to take that chance.”

  They stared at each other. In spite of the cold, Liv was sweating, clammy beneath the arms, wet at the hairline. She was absolutely terrified.

  And determined that this poor, sick kid wasn’t going to know it.

  “And what now?” he asked, eyes wilder than ever. “What will I do now? They have to have figured it was me that took you—or if they haven’t by now, they will, soon enough. I can’t go back. I’ll have to run away, I guess. Into the Midlings—or farther, all the way to the Black Mountains. Maybe the Mystics will take me in. Or maybe the kvina soldars will get me. They’ll cut out my liver and string me up for the ravens to peck out my eyes.” He stood. “Oh, I don’t know.” He fisted a hand and punched it into his other palm. “I just don’t know…” She ordered her body not to shrink back as he came close enough to pick up the lamp.

  “I’ll watch some more. See what they’re up to. Then I’ll be back.” He started for the corridor beyond the foot of the bed, pausing just before he went through it. “I’m sorry, but Eveline knows about this place. I brought her here once. They’ll get it out of her, that I might come here. And that means they’ll find you. You’ll tell them what I did.”

  She shook her head—fast, frantic.

  But he only smiled, a sad, trembling boy’s smile. “Oh, don’t lie. You know you will. There’s only one way. And that’s you dead and buried. And once that’s done, I’ll go far, far away.”

  It was still pouring rain, but Finn had every man out. They were beating the bushes, systematically combing the grounds.

  They’d found no sign of her other than the car, idling just inside the open gate, front doors open, her shoulder bag on the floor of the back seat.

  He’d sent immediately for Dag and Dag had explained that he’d been helping one of the grooms in the stables. He’d dispatched Cauley to open the gate.

  Cauley was nowhere to be found.

  And Liv…

  Finn stood in the rain by the abandoned car, his hair plastered to his face, water running down his nose. By the thousand roots of the guardian tree, if only he’d picked up the cursed telephone—four times, in total, she had called, twice to his cell phone, twice to the house.

  And he’d been too busy pitying himself for loving her to answer.

  If anything had happened to her…

  He caught himself.

  Nothing was going to happen. They would find her. She would be all right. It couldn’t be otherwise. He wouldn’t allow it.

  The question was, why had she left the car?

  It made no sense that she might have wandered off voluntarily. The gate had been opened, by Cauley, he was reasonably sure. The most logical move would have been for
her to drive on up to the house. It appeared, since the car was running, inside the gate, that she had started to do that.

  What might have stopped her? Had someone lurking in the trees attacked her? An enemy of the king perhaps, set on kidnapping the king’s daughter?

  It was possible, he supposed. But it seemed something of a stretch. Laying an ambush would take forewarning and few could even know that she was coming here.

  So what else could have happened? Was she lured from the car?

  No. Not likely. If she’d left the car voluntarily, it seemed sensible she would have left the doors closed.

  And come to that, why were both doors open? He leaned in on the driver’s side. The rain had soaked the front seats by then. But there on the passenger seat floor: mud. Someone had been in that seat.

  Cauley.

  Yes. She could have ordered the boy out of the rain and into the car. That would be like her. She would do that.

  And Cauley was missing, too.

  Could he have dragged her from the car and carried her off? But why?

  Finn ducked from the car and stood tall in the pouring rain.

  Whatever the why of it, Cauley was the missing piece of this particular puzzle. If he found Cauley, he would find Liv, he could feel that in his bones.

  But where to find Cauley? He’d already questioned Dag and both of the missing boy’s adoptive parents. All three had said they didn’t know. Finn believed them. Cauley’s parents were frantic with worry. And Dag was simply puzzled.

  Finn turned for the car he’d driven down from the house. It was time to have a little talk with Eveline.

  Time did funny things, when you were in the dark, alone.

  How long had it been since Cauley had left her? No way to know.

  Liv closed her useless eyes and worked at the ropes. Her wrists were raw, but she hardly felt them. Only the blood, warm and sticky as it dripped into her palms, reminded her that she was injuring herself as she strained and struggled—minor injuries, of little consequence against the possible loss of her life and the life of her unborn child.

  She worked at the ropes, pulling against them, out and then in, and then in a rubbing motion, back and forth. Really, the blood helped—it made her wrists slicker, and wet rope tended to stretch. If she only had time to…

  Wait.

  Yes!

  Her right hand was almost to the point that she could…

  Liv wriggled and pulled it, working it back toward her body, ignoring the burning pain as it abraded her already raw skin.

  And it happened. Her hand came free.

  She glanced furtively toward the place where Cauley had entered before. Nothing. Not the slightest glimmer of light. He wasn’t coming yet. She brought her hands around to the front and started to rip at the tape—but no. Ankles first.

  She hauled up her feet and put her blood-sticky hands to the task.

  It was then that she saw the light.

  Finn had sent his grandfather from the room. It was just the two of them, brother and sister, face-to-face.

  “Eveline. I want to know. Where would Cauley go, if he didn’t want to be found?”

  Her gaze slid away.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Look at me. Tell me. I can see by your face that you know.”

  She squirmed against his grip. “Let me go.” He held on, his fingers digging in. She cried out. “You’re hurting me.”

  “And I’ll hurt you worse. Freyja’s eyes, you will tell me.”

  Eveline glared at him. “Oh, why are you so worried about her? You should be glad, if she’s gone for good. You’ll get over her. You’ll be happy again.”

  He wanted to hit her—hard. Somehow he restrained himself. He settled on giving her a bone-rattling shake. “I won’t be glad. I love her. It will kill me, if something’s happened to her.”

  Eveline gasped. Then she scoffed. “No. That’s not so….”

  “You know what happened to Father, when Mother died. Is that what you want? Your own brother dead?”

  Those eyes—their mother’s eyes—went wide. “No. No, Finn. I don’t want that.” He released her. She staggered back. “Finn. I swear on our mother’s name. I don’t want that. And I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, not really. I only want you not to be so sad.”

  He forced his voice to gentleness. “Then you must tell me. Where would Cauley go?”

  The tears came then, twin trails of wetness down her satin cheeks. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone. I’m sure he’s only hiding. I know he—”

  “By all the gods, Eveline. Where?”

  She sobbed. Swallowed. And stood tall. “In the trees not far from the front gate. A tunnel he found beneath a shelf of rock. A tunnel that leads to a little cave. There’s an old bed in there and a table and—”

  He remembered. The safe-tunnels. There were three or four of them, at strategic places around the estate. His great-grandfather had had them dug at the time of the Nazi occupation. More than one Jewish Gullandrian had made use of them, to hide and later escape to freedom. He’d thought they’d all been covered over after the Second World War.

  He grabbed his sister’s hand. “Show me.”

  Together they ran for the door.

  The light in the tunnel grew brighter.

  Too soon!

  No time to free her feet. She glanced in desperate longing at the shovel in the corner. No time to get to it.

  Maybe the candle…

  But what kind of weapon would that make?

  She reached for her face, clawing, tearing at the tape. She yanked it down around her neck just as Cauley appeared from the tunnel, his lamp in one hand.

  And a knife in the other—a knife with a long, curved blade and serrations at the top ridge. A deadly-looking thing. He pointed it at her, his eyes narrowing as he saw that she’d almost managed to free herself. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

  He kept the knife toward her as he approached.

  Liv resisted the urge to shrink back. She looked at him steadily, her limited options racing through her mind. Of course, she would fight. But how best to do that?

  “Stop,” she said. “Think.”

  He held the knife higher as he slid the lamp beneath his upraised arm and onto the table. “I said keep your mouth shut.”

  The hell she would. “You haven’t done anything you can’t come back from. Not yet.”

  “Quiet.”

  “No. Listen. Think. You know I’m right.”

  He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing hard. “I have to do it.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “You don’t have to do this. You can stop. Stop right now.”

  “It’s too late.” Suddenly he was shaking.

  “No, Cauley. It’s not too late.”

  He raised the blade. It wobbled madly. His whole arm shook.

  She saw the agony in his eyes and she knew. She was absolutely certain. He couldn’t do it.

  “Put the knife down, Cauley. You’re no murderer, we both know you’re not.”

  Tears glistened, pooled, spilled down the gaunt cheeks. “I…I don’t know what else to do. You have to see, I don’t have any choice.”

  She remembered something her mother had said a few days ago, when she finally told Liv why she’d left her father. And she recalled what Cauley himself had said earlier. “Yes. You have a choice. Something good can come of this.”

  He hiccuped, let out sharp moan. “Good? What good?”

  “A chance for you—a way to a better life.”

  He sobbed, swallowed, swiped his nose with his free hand. And—oh, thank God—he lowered the knife. “A…chance?”

  She nodded slowly, holding his eyes. “Take me to Finn. Now. Unharmed. And you’ll go to the Mystics. I am the daughter of your king and I will make it happen. I swear it to you. The wise men beyond the Black Mountains will teach you how to live, how to…get along, in the world. It won’t be easy. But in the end,
you’ll have a life, and a good one.”

  He was looking at the ground now, the knife at his side. She could have jumped him. She probably could have disarmed him. Maybe she should have.

  But she knew in her heart it was already done.

  His tears plopped to the damp earth between his battered boots. “I am nothing. Stupid. A gardener’s boy.”

  “Cauley. Look at me.”

  Slowly he dragged up his ragged, wet head.

  “Give me the knife. Now.”

  There was an endless moment when she doubted, when she feared she’d made a terrible mistake, the kind that would cost her life—and her baby’s, too. But then he turned the knife.

  He held it her way, handle out. She took it.

  And that was when another light appeared from the passageway. They both froze.

  Clearly, she heard it—pounding footsteps running toward them. The glow grew brighter.

  Cauley spun for the other entrance.

  “Don’t,” Liv commanded. “Stay. Face them. I will stand by you. It will be all right.”

  But the boy was already gone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Finn burst into the small, dim space, his men behind him. He froze at the sight that greeted him.

  Liv.

  On her knees on a dirty mattress, a huge, swelling bruise on her delicate jaw, a loose cowl of silver tape around her neck, her ankles tied, a bracelet of rope on one bleeding wrist, bedraggled and muddy.

  And holding a hunting knife.

  “Oh, my darling,” he whispered.

  With a glad cry, she threw the knife to the floor and held out her arms to him.

  It was all the invitation he needed. It took two steps to reach her. She surged up. He dropped the flashlight he held and grabbed her to him, tucking her head against his shoulder, rocking her, stroking her dirty, tangled hair. “It’s all right, it’s all right now.”

  “I know. Oh, Finn. I love you so.”

  It was all he’d ever wanted to hear. He kissed her hair. “As I love you. With all my heart.”

  She pulled back enough that she could look into his eyes. “I was coming to tell you. I want us to be together, any way you want it. Oh, Finn, I opened my morning gift. I found my panties. And I knew I didn’t want them back. Not ever. You’re the only man for me and I want—”